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pi 

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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Marion  Kelper 


TH  E 


CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY; 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  FOSSILIFEROUS 
DEPOSITS  OF  THE  HEBRIDES. 

WITH 

EAMBLES  OP  A  GEOLOGIST; 

OR, 

TEN  THOUSAND  MILES  OVER  THE  FOSSILIFEROUS 
DEPOSITS  OF  SCOTLAND. 


B  Y 

HUGH  MILLER,  LL.  D., 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  OLD  RED  SANDSTONE,1'  "  FOOTPRINTS  OF  THE  CREATOR," 

"  MY  SCHOOLS  AND   SCHOOLMASTERS,"   "  THE  TESTIMONY 

OF  THE  ROCKS,"  ETC. 


BOSTON: 

Q   O   U   L  D      AND      LINCOLN, 

69     WASHINGTON     STREET, 

NEW  YORK:  SHELDON  AND  COMPANY. 

CINCINNATI :  GEO.  8.  BLANCHARD. 

1859. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S58,  by 

GOULD    A  X  D    LINCOLN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


AUTHORIZED     EDITION. 

BY  a  special  arrangement  with  the  late  Hugh  Miller,  GOULD  AND  LINCOLN 
became  the  authorized  American  publishers  of  his  works.  By  a  similar  ar- 
rangement made  with  the  family  since  his  decease,  they  will  also  publish 
his  POSTHUMOUS  WORKS,  of  which  the  present  volume  is  the  first. 


ELECTROTTPED  BT  W.  F.  DRAPER,  ANDOVER.  MASS. 


PRINTED  BY  GEO.  C.   RAND  &  AVERT.  BOSTON. 


Qe 

2.44- 


PREFACE. 


NATURALISTS  of  every  class  know  too  well  how  HUGH  MIL- 
LER died  —  tlie  victim  of  an  overworked  brain  ;  and  how  that 
bright  and  vigorous  spirit  was  abruptly  quenched  forever. 

During  the  month  of  May  (1857)  Mrs.  Miller  came  to  Mal- 
vern,  after  recovering  from  the  first  shock  of  bereavement,  in 
search  of  health  and  repose,  and  evidently  hoping  to  do  justice, 
on  her  recovery,  to  the  literary  remains  of  her  husband.  Un- 
happily the  excitement  and  anxiety  naturally  attaching  to  a  re- 
vision of  her  husband's  works  proved  over  much  for  one  suffer- 
ing under  such  recent  trial,  and  from  an  affection  of  the  brain 
and  spine  which  ensued ;  and,  in  consequence,  Mrs.  Miller  has 
been  forbidden,  for  the  present,  to  engage  in  any  work  of  men- 
tal labor. 

Under  these  circumstances,  and  at  Mrs.  Miller's  request,  I 
have  undertaken  the  editing  of  "  The  Cruise  of  the  Betsey,  or 
a  Summer  Ramble  among  the  Fossiliferous  Deposits  of  the  He- 


980781 


IV  PREFACE. 

brides,"  as  well  as  "  The  Rambles  of  a  Geologist,"  hitherto  un- 
published, save  as  a  series  of  articles  in  the  "  Witness "  news- 
paper. The  style  and  arguments  of  HUGH  MILLER  are  so 
peculiarly  his  own,  that  I  have  not  presumed  to  alter  the  text, 
and  have  merely  corrected  some  statements  incidental  to  the 
condition  of  geological  knowledge  at  the  time  this  work  was 
penned.  "  The  Cruise  of  the  Betsey "  was  written  for  that 
well-known  paper  the  "  Witness  "  during  the  period  when  a 
disputation  productive  of  much  bitter  feeling  waged  between 
the  Free  and  Established  Churches  of  Scotland  ;  but  as  the 
Disruption  and  its  history  possesses  little  interest  to  a  large 
class  of  the  readers  of  this  work,  who  will  rejoice  to  follow 
their  favorite  author  among  the  isles  and  rocks  of  the  "  bon- 
nie  land,"  I  have  expunged  some  passages,  which  I  am  assured 
the  author  would  have  omitted  had  he  lived  to  reprint  this 
interesting  narrative  of  his  geological  rambles.  HUGH  MIL- 
LER battled  nobly  for  his  faith  while  living.  The  sword  is  in 

the  scabbard :   let  it  rest ! 

W.  S.  SYMONDS. 
PENDOCK  RECTORY,  APRIL  1, 1858. 


CONTENTS. 


PART     I. 

THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Preparation  —  Departure  —  Recent  and  Ancient  Monstrosities  —  A  Free  Church 
Yacht  —  Down  the  Clyde  —  Jura  —  Prof.  Walker's  Experiment  —  Whirlpool 
near  Scarba  —  Geological  Character  of  the  Western  Highlands  —  An  Illus- 
tration —  Different  Ages  of  Outer  and  Inner  Hebrides  —  Mt.  Blanc  and  the 
Himalayas  "  mere  upstarts  "  —  Esdaile  Quarries  —  Oban  —  A  Section  through 
Conglomerate  and  Slate  examined  —  M'Dougal's  Dog-stone  —  Power  of  the 
Ocean  to  move  Eocks  —  Sound  of  Mull  —  The  Betsey  —  The  Minister's  Cabiu 
—  Village  of  Tobermory — The  "Florida,"  a  Wreck  of  the  Invincible 
Armada  —  Geologic  Exploration  and  Discovery  —  At  Anchor.  .  .  15 


CHAPTER    II. 

The  Minister's  Larder  —  No  Harbor  —  Eigg  Shoes  —  Tormentilla  erecta  —  For  the 
Witness''  Sake  —  Eilean  Chaisteil  —  Appearance  of  Eigg  —  Chapel  of  St. 
Donan  —  Shell-sand  —  Origin  of  Secondary  Calcareous  Rock  suggested  — 
Exploration  of  Eigg  —  Pitchstone  Veins  —  A  Bone  Cave  —  Massacre  at  Eigg 
—  Grouping  of  Human  Bones  in  the  Cave  —  Relics  —  The  Horse's  Tooth  —  A 
Copper  Sewing  Needle  —  Teeth  found  —  Man  a  worse  Animal  than  his  Teeth 
show  him  to  have  been  designed  for  —  Story  of  the  Massacre  —  Another  Ver- 
sion —  Scuir  of  Eigg  —  The  Scuir  a  Giant's  Causeway  —  Character  of  the 
Columns  —  Remains  of  a  Prostrate  Forest. 31 


CHAPTER    III. 

Structure  of  the  Scuir  —  A  stray  Column  —  The  Piazza  —  A  buried  Pine  Forest 
the  Foundation  of  the  Scuir  —  Geological  Poachers  in  a  Fossil  Preserve  — 
Pinites  Eiggensis  —  Its  Description  —  Witham's  Experiments  on  Fossil  Pine 

1* 


VI  CONTENTS. 

of  Eigg  —  Rings  of  the  Pine  —  Ascent  of  the  Scuir  —  Appearance  of  the  Top 
—  White  Pitchstone  —  Mr.  Greig's  Discovery  of  Pumice  —  A  Sunset  Scene  — 
The  Manse  and  the  Yacht  —  The  Minister's  Story  —  A  Cottage  Repast  — 
American  Timber  drifted  to  the  Hebrides— Agency  of  the  Gulf  Stream— The 
Minister's  Sheep 49 


CHAPTER    IV. 

An  Excursion— The  Chain  of  Crosses— Bay  of  Laig— Island  of  Rum— Descrip- 
tion of  the  Island— Superstitions  banished  by  pure  Religion  — Fossil  Shells- 
Remarkable  Oyster  Bed— New  species  of  Belemnite— Oolitic  Shells  — White 
Sandstone  Precipices  — Gigantic  Petrified  Mushrooms—"  Christabel"  in  Stone 
—Musical  Sand  —  Jabel  Nakous,  or  Mountain  of  the  Bell  —  Experiments  of 
Travellers  at  Jabel  NaJcous  —  Welsted's  Account  —  Reg-Rawan,  or  the  Mov- 
ing Sand— The  Musical  Sounds  inexplicable  — Article  on  the  subject  in  the 
North  British  Review 66 


CHAPTER   V. 

Trap-dykes  —  "  Cotton  Apples  "  —  Alternation  of  Lacustrine  -with  Marine  Re- 
mains —  Analogy  from  the  Beds  of  Esk  —  Aspect  of  the  Island  on  its  narrow 
Front  —  The  Puffin  —  Ru  Stoir  —  Development  of  Old  Red  Sandstone  —  Strik- 
ing Columnar  character  of  Ru  Stoir  —  Discovery  of  Reptilian  Remains  — 
John  Stewart's  wonder  at  the  Bones  in  the  Stones  —  Description  of  the  Bones 
—  "Dragons,  Gorgons,  and  Chimeras" — Exploration  and  Discovery  pur- 
sued —  The  Midway  Shieling  —  A  Celtic  Welcome  —  Return  to  the  Yacht  — 
"  Array  of  Fossils  new  to  Scotch  Geology  "  —  A  Geologist's  Toast  —  Hoffman 
and  his  Fossil.  85 


CHAPTER    VI. 

Something  for  Non-geologists  —  Man  Destructive  —  A  Better  and  Last  Creation 
coming  —  A  Rainy  Sabbath  —  The  Meeting  House  —  The  Congregation  —  The 
Sermon  in  Gaelic  —  The  Old  Wondrous  Story  —  The  Drunken  Minister  of 
Eigg  —  Presbytcrianism  without  Life  —  Dr.  Johnson's  Account  of  the  Con- 
version of  the  People  of  Rum  —  Romanism  at  Eigg  —  The  Two  Boys  —  The 
Freebooter  of  Eigg  —  Voyage  resumed  —  The  Homeless  Minister  —  Harbor 
of  Isle  Ornsay  —  Interesting  Gneiss  Deposit  —  A  Norwegian  Keep  —  Gneiss 
at  Knock  —  Curious  Chemistry  —  Sea-cliffs  beyond  Portsea  —  The  Goblin 
Luidag  —  Scenery  of  Skye. 105 


CONTENTS.  VII 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Exploration  resumed  —  Geology  of  Rasay  —  An  Illustration  —  The  Storr  of 
Skye  —  From  Portree  to  Holm  —  Discovery  of  Fossils  —  An  Island  Rain  — 
Sir  R.  Murchisou  —  Labor  of  Drawing  a  Geological  Line  —  Three  Edinburgh 
Gentlemen  —  Prosopolepsia —  Wrong  Surmises  corrected — The  Mail  Gig  — 
The  Portree  Postmaster  —  Isle  Orusay  —  An  Old  Acquaintance  —  Reminis- 
cences —  A  Run  for  Rum  —  "  Semi-fossil  Madeira  "  —  Idling  on  Deck  — 
Prognostics  of  a  Storm  —  Description  of  the  Gale  —  Loch  Scresort  —  The 
Minister's  lost  Sou-wester — The  Free  Church  Gathering —The  weary  Min- 
ister. 123 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

Geology  of  Rum  —  Its  curious  Character  illustrated  —  Rum  famous  for  Blood- 
stones —  Red  Sandstones  —  "  Scratchings  :I  in  the  Rocks  —  A  Geological  In- 
scription without  a  Key  —  The  Lizard  —  Vitality  broken  into  two  —  Illustra- 
tions —  Speculation  —  Scuir  More  —  Ascent  of  the  Scuir  —  The  Bloodstones 
—  An  Illustrative  Set  of  the  Gem  —  M'Culloch's  Pebble  —  A  Chemical  Prob- 
lem —  The  solitary  Shepherd's  House  —  Sheep  versus  Men  —  The  Depopula- 
tion of  Rum  —  A  Haul  of  Trout  —  Rum  Mode  of  catching  Trout  —  At 
Anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Glenelg. 140 


CHA  PTER    IX. 

Kyles  of  Skye  —  A  Gneiss  District  —  Kyle  Rhea  —  A  Boiling  Tide  —  A  "  Take  " 
of  Sillocks  —  The  Betsey's  "Paces"  —  In  the  Bay  at  Broadford  —  Rain  — 
Island  of  Pabba  —  Description  of  the  Island  —  Its  Geological  Structure  — 
Astrea  —  Polypifers  —  Gryphcea  incurva  —  Three  Groups  of  Fossils  in  the  Lias 
of  Skye  —  Abundance  of  the  Petrifactions  of  Pabba  —  Scenery  —  Pabba  a 
"piece  of  smooth,  level  England"  —  Fossil  Shells  of  Pabba  —  Voyage  re- 
sumed —  Kyle  Akin  —  Ruins  of  Castle  Maoil  —  A  "  Thornback  "  Dinner  — 
The  Bunch  of  Deep  Sea  Tangle  —  The  Caileach  Stone  —  Kelp  Furnaces  — 
Escape  of  the  Betsey  from  sinking 159 


CHAPTER    X. 

Isle  Ornsay  —  The  Sabbath  —  A  Sailor-minister's  Sermon  for  Sailors  —  The 
Scuir  Sermon  —  Loch  Carron  —  Groups  of  Moraines  —  A  sheep  District  — 
The  Editor  of  the  Witness  and  the  Establishment  Clergyman  —  Dingwall  — 
Conon-side  revisited  —The  Pond  and  its  Changes  —  New  Faces  —  The  Stone- 
mason's Mark  —  The  Burying-ground  of  Urquhart  —  An  old  Acquaintance — 
Property  Qualification  for  Voting  in  Scotland  —  Montgerald  Sandstone 


VIII  CONTENTS. 

Quarries  —  Geological  Science  in  Cromarty  —  The  Danes  at  Cromarty  —  The 
Danish  Professor  and  the  "  Old  Red  Sandstone  "  —  Harmonizing  Tendencies 
of  Science 178 

CHAPTER    XI. 

Jchthyolite  Beds  —  An  interesting  Discovery  —  Two  Storeys  of  Organic  Remains 
in  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  —  Ancient  Ocean  of  Lower  Old  Red  —  Two  great 
Catastrophes  —  Ancient  Fish  Scales  —  Their  skilful  Mechanism  displayed  by 
examples  —  Bone  Lips  —  Arts  of  the  Slater  and  Tiler  as  old  as  Old  Red 
Sandstone  —  Jet  Trinkets  —  Flint  Arrow-heads  —  Vitrified  Forts  of  Scotland 
—  Style  of  grouping  Lower  Old  Red  Fossils  —  Illustration  from  Cromarty 
Fishing  Phenomena  —  Singular  Remains  of  Iloloptychius  —  Ramble  with  Mr. 
Robert  Dick  —  Color  of  the  Planet  Mars  —  Tombs  never  dreamed  of  by 
Hervey  —  Skeleton  of  the  Bruce  —  Gigantic  Holoptychius  —  "Coal  money 
Currency  " —  Upper  Boundary  of  Lower  Old  Red  —  Every  one  may  add  to  the 
Store  of  Geological  Facts — Discoveries  of  Messrs.  Dick  and  Peach.  .  192 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Ichthyolite  Beds  of  Clune  and  Lelhenbarn  —  Limestone  Quarry  —  Destruction 
of  Urns  and  Sarcophagi  in  the  Lime-kiln  —  Nodules  opened  —  Beautiful 
coloring  of  the  Remains  —  Patrick  Duff's  Description  —  New  Genus  of  Moray- 
shire  Ichthyolite  described  —  Form  and  size  of  the  Nodules  or  Stone  Coffins  — 
Illustration  from  Mrs.  Marshall's  Cements  —  Forest  of  Darnaway  —  The  Hill 
of  Berries  —  Sluie  —  Elgin  —  Outliers  of  the  Weald  and  the  Oolite  —  Descrip- 
tion of  the  Weald  at  Linksfleld  —  Mr.  Duff's  Lepidotus  minor  —  Eccentric 
Types  of  Fish  Scales  —  Visit  to  the  Sandstones  of  Scat-Craig  —  Fine  suit  of 
Fossils  at  Scat-Craig  —  True  graveyard  Bones,  not  mere  Impressions  —  Va- 
rieties of  pattern  —  The  Diker's  "  Carved  Flowers  "  —  Stagonolepis,  a  new 
Genus  —  Termination  of  the  Ramble.  212 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

SUPPLEMENTARY. 

Supplementary  —  Isolated  Reptile  Remains  in  Eigg  —  Small  Isles  revisited  —The 
Betsey  again  —  Storm  bound  —  Tacking  —  Becalmed  —  Medusa;  caught  and 
described  —  Rain  —  A  Shoal  of  Porpoises  —  Change  of  Weather  —  The  bed- 
ridden Woman  —  The  Poor  Law  Act  for  Scotland  —  Geological  Excursion  — 
Basaltic  Columns  —  Oolitic  Beds  —  Abundance  of  Organic  Remains  —  Hybo- 
dus  Teeth  —  Discovery  of  reptile  Remains  in  situ  —  Musical  Sand  of  Laig 
re-examined  —  Explanation  suggested  —  Sail  for  Isle  Ornsay  —  Anchored 
Clouds  —  A  Leak  sprung  —  Peril  of  the  Betsey  —  At  work  with  Pump  and 
Pails  —  Safe  in  Harbor  —  Return  to  Edinburgh 233 


CONTENTS. 


PART     II. 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Embarkation  —  A  foundered  Vessel  —  Lateness  of  the  Harvest  dependent  on  the 
Geological  character  of  the  Soil — A  Granite  Harvest  and  an  Old  Red  Harvest 
—  Cottages  of  Redstone  and  of  Granite  —  Arable  Soil  of  Scotland  the  result 
of  a  Geological  Grinding  Agency — Locality  of  the  Famine  of  1846  —  Mr. 
Longmuir's  Fossils  —  Geology  necessary  to  a  Theologian  —  Popnlarizers  of 
Science  when  dangerous  —  "  Constitution  of  Man,"  and  "  Vestiges  of  Crea- 
tion "  —  Atop  of  the  Banff  Coach  —  A  Geologist's  Field  Equipment  —  The 
trespassing  "  Stirk  "  —  Silurian  Schists  inlaid  with  Old  Red  —  Bav  of  Gamrie 
how  formed  —  Gardenstoue —  Geological  Free-masonry  illustrated  —  How  to 
break  an  Ichthyolite  Nodule  —  An  old  Rhyme  mended  —  A  raised  Beach  — 
Fossil  Shells  —  Scotland  under  Water  at  the  time  of  the  Boulder-clays.  255 


CHAPTER    II. 

Character  of  the  Rocks  near  Gardenstone  —  A  Defunct  Father-lasher  —  A  Geo- 
logical Inference  —  Village  of  Gardenstone — The  drunken  Scot — Garden- 
stone  Inn  —  Lord  Gardenstone  —  A  Tempest  threatened  —  The  Author's 
Ghost  Story  —  The  Lady  in  Green  —  Her  Appearance  and  Tricks  —  The  Res- 
cued Children  —  The  murdered  Peddler  and  his  Pack  —  Where  the  Green 
Dress  came  from —  Village  of  Macduff  —  Peculiar  Appearance  of  the  Beach 
at  the  Mouth  of  the  Deveron  —  Dr.  Emslie's  Fossils  —  Pterichthys  quadratus  — 
Argillaceous  Deposits  of  Blackpots  —  Pipe-laying  in  Scotland  —  Fossils  of 
Blackpots  Clay —  Mr.  Longmuir's  Description  of  them  —  Blackpots  Deposit  a 
Re-formation  of  a  Liasic  Patch  —  Period  of  its  Formation.  .  .  .  270 


CONTEXTS. 


CHAPTER    III. 

From  Blackpots  to  Portsoy  —  Character  of  the  Coast  —  Burn  of  Boyr.e  —  Fever 
Phantoms  —  Graphic  Granite  —  Maupertuis  and  the  Eunic  Inscription  — 
Explanation  of  the  quo  modo  of  Graphic  Granite  —  Portsoy  Inn  —  Serpentine 
Beds  —  Portsoy  Serpentine  unrivalled  for  small  ornaments  —  Description  of 
it  —  Significance  of  the  term  serpentine  —  Elizabeth  Bond  and  her  "  Lctl'-r.-;  ' 
—  From  Portsoy  to  Cullen  —  Attritive  Power  of  the  Ocean  illustrated  —  The 
Equinoctial  —  From  Cullen  to  Fochabers  —  The  Old  Red  again  —  The  old 
Pensioner  —  Fochabers  —  Mr.  Joss,  the  learnod  Mail-guard  —  The  F.diti  r  s. 
sort  of  Coach-guard  —  On  the  Coach  to  Elgin  —  Geology  of  Banflthl-.e  — 
Irregular  paging  of  the  Geologic  Leaves  —  Geologic  Map  of  the  County  like 
Joseph's  Coat  —  Striking  Illustration 291 


CHAPTER     IV. 

Yellow-hned  Houses  of  Elgin  —  Geology  of  the  Country  indicated  by  the  coloring 
of  the  Stone  Houses  —  Fossils  of  Old  Red  north  of  the  Grampians  different 
from  those  of  Old  Red  south  —  Geologic  Formations  at  Liukstield  difficult 
to  be  understood  —  Ganoid  Scales  of  the  Wealdcn —  Sudden  Reaction,  from 
complex  to  simple,  in  the  Scales  of  Fishes  — Pore-covered  Scales  —  Extraor- 
dinary amount  of  Design  exhibited  in  Ancient  Ganoid  Scales  —  Holoptychius 
Scale  illustrated  by  Cromwell's  "fluted  pot"  —  Patrick  Duff's  Geological 
Collection  —  Elgin  Museum  —  Fishes  of  the  Ganges  —  Armature  of  Ancient 
Fishes  —  Compensatory  Defences  —  The  Hermit-crab  . —  Spines  of  the  Pime- 
lodi  —  Ride  to  Campbclton  —  Theories  of  the  formation  of  Ardersier  and 
Fortrose  Promontories  —  Tradition  of  their  construction  by  the  Wizard, 
Michael  Scott —  A  Region  of  Legendary  Lore 307 


CHAPTER    V. 

Rosemarkie  and  its  Scaurs  —  Kaes'  Craig  —  A  Jackdaw  Settlement  —  "  Rose- 
markie  Kaes"  and  "  Cromarty  Cooties" — '-The  Danes,"  a  Group  of  Ex- 
cavations —  At  Home  in  Cromarty  —  The  Boulder-clay  of  Cromarty  "  begins 
to  tell  its  story  "  —  One  of  its  marked  Scenic  Peculiarities  —  Hints  to  Land- 
scape Painters  —  "  Samuel's  Well ':  —  A  Chain  of  Bogs  geologically  accounted 
for  —  Another  Scenic  Peculiarity  —  "  Ha-has  of  Nature's  digging  "  —  The 
Author's  earliest  Field  of  Hard  Labor—  Picturesque  Cliff  of  Boulder-c!ay  — 
Scratchings  on  the  Sandstone  —  Invariable  Characteristic  of  true  Boulder- 
clay—  Scratchings  on  Pebbles  in  the  line  of  the  longer  axis— Illustration  from 
the  Boulder-clay  of  Banff.  ...  324 


C  0  X  T  E  N  T  S .  XI 


CHAPTER    VI. 

Organisms  of  the  Boulder-clay  not  unequivocal  —  First  Impressions  of  the 
Boulder-clay  —  Difficulty  of  accounting  for  its  barrenness  of  Remains  —  Sir 
Charles  Lyell's  reasoning  —  A  Fact  to  the  contrary  —  Human  Skull  dug  from 
a  Clay-bank  —  The  Author's  Change  of  Belief  respecting  Organic  Remains 
of  the  Boulder-clay  —  Shells  from  the  Clay  at  Wick  —  Questions  respecting 
them  settled  —  Conclusions  confirmed  by  Mr.  Dick's  Discoveries  at  Thurso  — 
Sir  John  Sinclair's  Discovery  of  Boulder-clay  Shells  in  1802  —  Comminution 
of  the  Shells  illustrated  —  Cyprina  islandica  —  Its  Preservation  in  larger  Pro- 
portions than  those  of  other  Shells  accounted  for  —  Boulder-clays  of  Scot- 
land reformed  during  the  existing  Geological  Epoch  —  Scotland  in  the  Period 
of  the  Boulder-clay  "  merely  three  detached  groups  of  Islands  "  —  Evidence 
of  the  Subsidence  of  the  Land  in  Scotland  —  Confirmed  by  Rev.  Mr.  Cum- 
ming's  conclusion  —  High-lying  Granite  Boulders  —  Marks  of  a  succeeding 
elevatory  Period  —  Scandinavia  now  rising  —  Autobiography  of  a  Boulder 
desirable  —  A  Story  of  the  Supernatural 336 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Relation  of  the  deep  red  stone  of  Cromarty  to  the  Ichthyolite  Beds  of  the  System 

—  Ruins  of  a  Fossil-charged  Bed  —  Journey  to  Avoch  —  Red  Dye  of  the 
Boulder-clay  distinct  from  the  substance  itself —  Variation  of  Colonn;;  in  the 
Boulder-clay  Red   Sandstone   accounted  for  —  Hard-pan    how  formed  —  A 
reformed    Garden  —  An  ancient   Battle-field  —  Antiquity  of  Geologic  and 
Human  History  compared  —  Burn  of  Killein  —  Observation  made  in  boy- 
hood confirmed  —  Fossil-nodules  —  Fine  Specimen  of  Coccosteus  decipiens  — 

—  Blank  strata  of  Old  Red  —  New  View  respecting  the  Rocks  of  Black  Isle  — 
A  Trip  up  Moray  and  Dingwall  Friths  —  Altered  color  of  the  Boulder-clay  — 
Up  the  Auldgrande  River — Scenery  of  the  great  Conglomerate — Graphic 
Description  —  Laidlaw's  Boulder  —  Vacciniitm  myrtillus  —  Profusion  of  Trav- 
elled Boulders  —  The  Boulder  Clack  Malloch  —  Its  zones  of  Annual  and  Vege- 
table Life.         355 


CHAPTER     VIII. 

Imaginary  Autobiography  of  the  Clach  Malloch  Boulder  —  Its  Creation  —  Its 
Long  Night  of  unsummed  Centuries  —  Laid  open  to  light  on  a  desert  Island 
—  Surrounded  by  an  Arctic  Vegetation  —  Undermined  by  the  rising  Sea  — 
Locked  up  and  floated  off  on  an  Ice-field  —  At  rest  on  the  Sea-bottom  — 
Another  Night  of  uusummed  Years  —  The  Boulder  raif  cd  again  above  the 


XII  CONTENTS. 

waves  by  the  rising  of  the  Land  —  Beholds  an  Altered  Country —  Tine  For- 
ests and  Mammals  —  Another  Period  of  Ages  passes  —  The  Boulder  apaiu 
floated  off  by  an  Iceberg  —  Finally  at  rest  on  the  Shore  of  Cromarty  Bay — 
Time  and  Occasion  of  naming  it — Strange  Phenomena  accounted  for  by  Earth- 
quakes —  How  the  Boulder  of  Petty  Bay  was  moved  —  The  Boulder  of  Auld- 
grande— The  old  Highland  Paupers  —  The  little  Parsi  Girl  —  Her  Letter  to 
her  Papa  —  But  one  Human  Nature  on  Earth  —  Journey  resumed  —  Conon 
Burying  Ground  —  An  aged  Couple  —  Gossip. 375 


CHAPTER    IX. 

The  Great  Conglomerate  —  Its  Undulatory  and  Rectilinear  Members  —  Knock 
Farril  and  its  Vitrified  Fort  —  The  old  Highlanders  an  observant  race  —  The 
Vein  of  Silver  —  Summit  of  Knock  Farril  —  Mode  of  accounting  for  the 
Luxuriance  of  Herbage  in  the  ancient  Scottish  Fortalices  —  The  green  Graves 
of  Culloden  —  Theories  respecting  the  Vitrification  of  the  Hill-forts  —  Com- 
bined Theories  of  Williams  and  Mackenzie  probably  give  the  correct  account 
— The  Author's  Explanation — Transformations  of  Fused  Rocks — Stratbpeffer 

—  The  Spa  —  Permanent  Odoriferous  Qualities  of  an  ancient  Sea-bottom  con- 
verted into  Rock  —  Mineral  Springs  of  the  Spa  —  Infusion  of  the  powdered 
rock  a  substitute  —  Belemnite  Water  —  The  lively  young  Lady's  Comments 

—  A  befogged    Country  seen  from    a    hill-top  —  Beu-Wyvis  —  Journey  to 
Evantou  —  A  Geologist's  Night-mare  —  The  Route  Home  —  Ruins  of  Craig 
house — Incompatibility  of  Tea' and  Ghosts  —  End  of  the  Tour.     .       .        393 


CHAPTER    X. 

Recovered  Health  —  Journey  to  the  Orkneys  —Aboard  the  Steamer  at  Wick 

—  Mr.  Bremner  —  Masonry  of  the  Harbor  of  Wick  —  The  greatest  Blunders 
result  from  good  Rules  misapplied  —  Mr.  Bremner's  Theory  about  sea-washed 
Masonry  —  Singular  Fracture  of  the  Rock  near  Wick  —  The  Author's  mode 
of  accounting  for  it  —  '>  Simple  but  not  obvious :)  Thinking—  Mr.  Bremuer's 
mode  of    making  stone  Erections  under   Water  —  His  exploits  in  raising 
foundered  Vessels  —  Aspect  of  the  Orkneys  —  The  ungracious  Schoolmaster 

—  In  the  Frith  of  Kirkwall  —  Cathedral  of  St    Magnus  —  Appearance  of 
Kirkwall  — Its  "  perished  suppers"  —Its  ancient  Palaces  —  Blunder  of  the 
Scotch  Aristocracy  —  The  patronate  Wedge  —  Breaking  Ground  in  Orkney  — 
Minute  Gregarious   Coccosteus  —  True  Position  of  the  Coccostcus' Eyes — 
Ruins  of  one  of  Cromwell's  Forts  —  Antiquities  of  Orkney  —  The  Cathedral  — 
Its   Sculptures  —  The    Mysterious    Cell  —  Prospect   from    the  Tower  —  Its 
Chimes  —  Ruins  of  Castle  Patrick 414 


CONTENTS.  XIII 


CHAPTER     XI. 

The  Bishop's  Palace  at  Orkney  —  Haco  the  Norwegian  —  Icelandic  Chronicle 
respecting  his  Expedition  to  Scotland  —  His  Death  —  Removal  of  his  Re- 
mains to  Norway  — Why  Norwegian  Invasion  ceased  —  Straw-plaiting  —  The 
Lassies  of  Orkney  —  Orkney  Type  of  Countenance  —  Celtic  and  Scandi- 
navian —  An  accomplished  Antiquary  —  Old  Manuscripts  —  An  old  Tune 
book — Manuscript  Letter  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  —  Letters  of  General 
Monck  —  The  fearless  Covenanter  —  Cave  of  the  Rebels  —  "Why  the  tragedy 
of  "  Gustavus  Vasa"  was  prohibited  —  Quarry  of  Pickoquoy  —  Its  Fossil 
Shells  —  Journey  to  Stromness  —  Scenery —  Birth-place  of  Malcolm,  the  Poet 
—  His  History  —  One  of  his  Poems  —  His  Brother  a  Free  Church  Minister  — 
New  Scenery. 437 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Hills  of  Orkney  —  Their  Geologic  Composition  —  Scene  of  Scott's  "Pirate"  — 
Stromness  —  Geology  of  the  District  —  "  Seeking  beasts"  —  Conglomerate  in 
contact  with  Granite  —  A  palaeozoic  Hudson's  Bay  —  Thickness  of  Conglom- 
erate of  Orkney  —  Oldest  Vertebrate  yet  discovered  in  Orkney  —  Its  Size  — 
Figure  of  a  characteristic  plate  of  the  Asterolepis  —  Peculiarity  of  Old  Red 
Fishes  —  Length  of  the  Asterolepis  —  A  rich  Ichthyolite  Bed  —  Arrangement 
of  the  Layers  —  Queries  as  to  the  Cause  of  it  —  Minerals  —  An  abandoned 
Mine  —  A  lost  Vessel  —  Kelp  for  Iodine  —  A  dangerous  Coast  —  Incidents  of 
Shipwreck  —  Hospitality  —  Stromness  Museum  —  Diplopterus  mistaken  for 
Dipterus  —  Their  Resemblances  and  Differences  —  Visit  to  a  remarkable  Stack 
—  Paring  the  Soil  for  Fuel,  and  consequent  Barrenness  —  Description  of  the 
Stack  —  Wave-formed  Caves  —  Height  to  which  the  Surf  rises.  .  .  457 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

Detached  Fossils  —  Remains  of  the  Pterichthys  —  Terminal  Bones  of  the  Coccos- 
tens,  etc.,  preserved  —  Internal  Skeleton  of  Coccosteus  —  The  shipwrecked 
Sailor  in  the  Cave  —  Bishop  Grahame  —  His  Character,  as  drawn  by  Baillie  — 
His  Successor  —  Ruins  of  the  Bishop's  Country  -house  —  Sub-aerial  Formation 
of  Sandstone  —  Formation  near  New  Kaye  —  Inference  from  such  Formation 
—  Tour  resumed  —  Loch  of  Stennis  —  Waters  of  the  Loch  fresh,  brackish, 
and  salt — Vegetation  varied  accordingly  —  Change  produced  in  the  Flounder 
by  fresh  water  —  The  Standing  Stones,  second  only  to  Stonehenge  —  Their 
Purpose  —  Their  Appearance  and  Situation  —  Diameter  of  the  Circle  — What 
the  Antiquaries  say  of  it  —  Reference  to  it  in  the  "  Pirate  "  —  Dr.  Hibbert's 
Account. 476 

2 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 


On  Horseback  —  A  pared  Moor  —  Small  Landholders  —  Absorption  of  small 
holdings  in  England  and  Scotland  —  Division  of  Land  favorable  to  Civil  and 
Religious  Eights  —  Favorable  to  social  Elevation  —  An  inland  Parish  —  The 
Landsman  and  Lobster  —  Wild  Flowers  of  Orkney  —  Law  of  Compensation 
illustrated  by  the  Tobacco  Plant  —  Poverty  tends  to  Productiveness  —  Illus- 
trated in  Ireland  —  Profusion  of  Ichthyolites  —  Orkney  a  land  of  Defunct 
Fishes  —  Sandwick  —  A  Collection  of  Coccostean  Flags  —  A  Quarry  full  of 
Heads  of  Dipteri  —  The  Bergil,  or  Striped  Wrasse  —  Its  Resemblance  to  the 
Dipterus  —  Poverty  of  the  Flora  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  —  No  true  Coniferous 
Wood  in  the  Orkney  Flagstones  —  Departure  for  Hoy  —  The  intelligent  Boat- 
man —  Story  of  the  Orkney  Fisherman 492 


CHAPTER     XV. 


Hoy  —  Unique  Scenery  —  The  Dwarfie  Stone  of  Hoy  —  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Ac- 
count of  it  —  Its  Associations  —  Inscription  of  Names  —  George  Buchanan's 
Consolation  —  The  mythic  Carbuncle  of  the  Hill  of  Hoy  —  No  Fossils  at 
Hoy  —  Striking  Profile  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  on  the  Hill  of  Hoy  —  Sir  Walter, 
and  Shetland  and  Orkney  —  Originals  of  two  Characters  in  '•  The  Pirate  " — 
Bessie  Millie  —  Garden  of  Gow,  the  "  Pirate "  —  Childhood's  Scene  of  Byron's 
"  Torquil "  —  The  Author's  Introduction  to  his  Sister  —  A  German  Visitor 
—  German  and  Scotch  Sabbath-keeping  habits  contrasted  —  Mr.  Watt's  Speci- 
mens of  Fossil  Remains  —  The  only  new  Organism  found  in  Orkney  —  Back 
to  Kirkwall  —  to  Wick  —  Tedder's  Ode  to  Orkney.  ....  507 


THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PREPARATION — Departure— Recent  and  Ancient  Monstrosities — A  Free  Church 
Yacht  —  Down  the  Clyde  —  Jura  —  Prof.  Walker's  Experiment  —  Whirlpool 
near  Scarba  — Geological  Character  of  the  Western  Highlands  —  An  Illus- 
tration—  Different  Ages  of  Outer  and  Inner  Hebrides  —  Mt.  Blanc  and  the 
Himalayas  "  mere  upstarts"  —  Esdaile  Quarries  —  Oban  —  A  Section  through 
Conglomerate  and  Slate  examined  —  M'Dougal's  Dog-stone  —  Power  of  the 
Ocean  to  move  Rocks  —  Sound  of  Mull  —  The  Betsey — The  Minister's  Cabin  — 
Village  of  Tobermory — The  "  Florida,"  a  Wreck  of  the  Invincible  Armada  — 
Geologic  Exploration  and  Discovery  —  At  Anchor. 

THE  pleasant  month  of  July  had  again  come  round,  and 
for  full  five  weeks  I  was  free.  Chisels  and  hammers,  and 
the  bag  for  specimens,  were  taken  from  their  corner  in  the 
dark  closet,  and  packed  up  with  half  a  stone  weight  of  a 
fine  soft  Conservative  Edinburgh  newspaper,  valuable  for  a 
quality  of  preserving  old  things  entire.  At  noon  on  St. 
Swithin's  day  (Monday  the  15th),  I  was  speeding  down  the 
Clyde  in  the  Toward  Castle  steamer,  for  Tobermory  in 
Mull.  In  the  previous  season  I  had  intended  passing  direct 
from  the  Oolitic  deposits  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Scotland, 
to  the  Oolitic  deposits  of  the  Hebrides.  But  the  weeks 
glided  all  too  quickly  away  among  the  ichthyolites  of 
Caithness  and  Cromai-ty,  and  the  shells  and  lignites  of 
Sutherland  and  Ross.  My  friend,  too,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Swan- 
son,  of  Small  Isles,  on  whose  assistance  I  had  reckoned,  was 


16  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE  BETSEY;    OR, 

in  the  middle  of  his  troubles  at  the  time,  -with  no  longer  a 
home  in  his  parish,  and  not  yet  provided  with  one  else- 
where ;  and  I  concluded  he  would  have  but  little  heart,  at 
such  a  season,  for  breaking  into  rocks,  or  for  passing  from 
the  too  pressing  monstrosities  of  an  existing  state  of  things^ 
to  the  old  lapidified  monstrosities  of  the  past.  And  so  my 
design  on  the  Hebrides  had  to  be  postponed  for  a  twelve- 
month. But  my  friend,  now  afloat  in  his  Free  Church 
yacht,  had  got  a  home  on  the  sea  beside  his  island  charge, 
which,  if  not  very  secure  when  nights  were  dark  and  winds 
loud,  and  the  little  vessel  tilted  high  to  the  long  roll  of  the 
Atlantic,  lay  at  least  beyond  the  reach  of  man's  intolerance, 
and  not  beyond  the  protecting  care  of  the  Almighty.  He 
had  written  me  that  he  would  run  down  his  vessel  from 
Small  Isles  to  meet  me  at  Tobermory,  and  in  consequence 
of  the  arrangement  I  was  now  on  my  way  to  Mull. 

St.  Swithin's  day,  so  important  in  the  calendar  of  our 
humbler  meteorologists,  had  in  this  part  of  the  country  its 
alt  ornate  fits  of  sunshine  and  shower.  We  passed  gaily 
along  the  green  banks  of  the  Clyde,  with  their  rich  flat 
fields  glittering  in  moisture,  and  their  lines  of  stately  trees, 
that,  as  the  light  flashed  out,  threw  their  shadows  over  the 
grass.  The  river  expanded  into  the  estuary,  the  estuary 
into  the  open  sea ;  we  left  behind  us  beacon,  and  obelisk, 
and  rock-perched  castle ;  — 

"  Merrily  down  we  drop 
Below  the  church,  below  the  tower, 
Below  the  light  house  top ,  " 

and,  as  the  evening  fell,  we  were  ploughing  the  outer 
reaches  of  the  Frith,  with  the  ridgy  table-land  of  Ayrshire 
stretching  away,  green,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  serrated 
peaks  of  Arran  rising  dark  and  high  on  the  other.  At  sun- 
rise next  morning  our  boat  lay,  unloading  a  portion  of  her 
cargo,  in  one  of  the  ports  of  Islay,  and  we  could  see  the 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  IT 

Irish  coast  resting  on  the  horizon  to  the  south  and  west, 
like  a  long  undulating  bank  of  thin  blue  cloud ;  with  the 
island  of  Rachrin  —  famous  for  the  asylum  it  had  afforded 
the  Bruce  when  there  was  no  home  for  him  in  Scotland,  — 
presenting  in  front  its  mass  of  darker  azure.  On  and  away ! 
We  swept  past  Islay,  with  its  low  fertile  hills  of  mica-schist 
and  slate ;  and  Jura,  with  its  flat  dreary  moors,  and  its  far- 
seen  gigantic  paps,  on  one  of  which,  in  the  last  age, 
Professor  Walker,  of  Edinburgh,  set  water  a-boil  with  six 
degrees  of  heat  less  than  he  found  necessary  for  the  purpose 
on  the  plain  below.  The  Professor  describes  the  view  from 
the  summit,  which  includes  in  its  wide  circle  at  once  the 
Isle  of  Skye  and  the  Isle  of  Man,  as  singularly  noble  and 
imposing ;  two  such  prospects  more,  he  says,  would  bring 
under  the  eye  the  whole  island  of  Great  Britain,  from  the 
Pentland  Frith  to  the  English  Channel.  We  sped  past 
Jura.  Then  came  the  Gulf  of  Coryvrekin,  with  the  bare 
mountain  island  of  Scarba  overlooking  the  fiei'ce,  far-famed 
whirlpool,  that  we  could  see  from  the  deck,  breaking  in 
long  lines  of  foam,  and  sending  out  its  waves  in  wide  rings 
on  every  side,  when  not  a  speck  of  white  was  visible  else- 
where in  the  expanse  of  sea  around  us.  And  then  came  an 
opener  space,  studded  with  smaller  islands,  —  mere  hill-tops 
rising  out  of  the  sea,  with  here  and  there  insulated  groups 
of  pointed  rocks,  the  skeletons  of  perished  hills,  amid 
which  the  tide  chafed  and  fretted,  as  if  laboring  to  complete 
on  the  broken  remains  their  work  of  denudation  and  ruin. 

The  disposition  of  land  and  water  on  this  coast  suggests 
the  idea  that  the  Western  Highlands,  from  the  line  in  the 
interior,  whence  the  rivers  descend  to  the  Atlantic,  with 
the  islands  beyond  to  the  outer  Hebrides,  are  all  parts  of 
one  great  mountainous  plane,  inclined  slantways  into  the 
sea.  First,  the  long  withdrawing  valleys  of  the  main  land, 
with  their  brown  mossy  streams,  change  their  character  as 

1* 


18  THE    CRUISE    OF    THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

they  dip  beneath  the  sea-level,  and  become  salt-water  lochs. 
The  lines  of  hills  that  rise  over  them  jut  out  as  promonto- 
ries, till  cut  off  by  some  transverse  valley,  lowered  still 
more  deeply  into  the  brine,  and  that  exists  as  a  kyle,  minch, 
or  sound,  swept  twice  every  tide  by  powerful  currents. 
The  sea  deepens  as  the  plain  slopes  downward ;  mountain- 
chains  stand  up  out  of  the  water  as  larger  islands,  single 
mountains  as  smaller  ones,  lower  eminences  as  mere  groups 
of  pointed  rocks ;  till  at  length,  as  we  pass  outwards,  all 
trace  of  the  submerged  land  disappears,  and  the  wide 
ocean  stretches  out  and  away  its  unfathomable  depths. 
The  model  of  some  Alpine  country  raised  in  plaster  on  a 
flat  board,  and  tilted  slaiitways,  at  a  low  angle,  into  a  basin 
of  water,  would  exhibit,  on  a  minute  scale,  an  appearance 
exactly  similar  to  that  presented  by  the  western  coast  of 
Scotland  and  the  Hebrides.  The  water  would  rise  along 
the  hollows,  longitudinal  and  transverse,  forming  sounds 
and  lochs,  and  surround,  island-like,  the  more  deeply  sub- 
merged eminences.  But  an  examination  of  the  geology  of 
the  coast,  with  its  promontories  and  islands,  communicates 
a  different  idea.  These  islands  and  promontories  prove  to 
be  of  very  various  ages  and  origin.  The  outer  Hebrides 
may  have  existed  as  the  inner  skeleton  of  some  ancient 
country,  contemporary  with  the  main  land,  and  that  bore 
on  its  upper  soils  the  productions  of  perished  creations,  at  a 
time  when  by  much  the  larger  portion  of  the  inner 
Hebrides,  —  Skye,  and  Mull,  and  the  Small  Isles,  —  existed 
as  part  of  the  bottom  of  a  wide  sound,  inhabited  by  the 
Cephalopoda  and  Enaliosauriaus  of  the  Lias  and  the  Oolite. 
Judging  from  its  components,  the  Long  Island,  like  the 
Lammermoors  and  the  Grampians,  may  have  been  smiling 
to  the  sun  when  the  Alps  and  the  Himalaya  Mountains  lay 
buried  in  the  abyss ;  whereas  tho  greater  part  of  Skye  and 
Mull  must  have  been,  like  these  vast  mountain-chains  of 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.  19 

the  Continent,  an  oozy  sea-floor,  over  which  the  ligneous 
productions  of  the  neighboring  lands,  washed  down  by  the 
streams,  grew  heavy  and  sank,  and  on  which  the  belemnite 
dropped  its  spindle  and  the  ammonite  its  shell.  The  idea 
imparted  of  old  Scotland  to  the  geologist  here,  —  of  Scot- 
land, proudly,  aristocratically,  supereminently  old,  —  for  it 
can  call  Mont  Blanc  a  mere  upstart,  and  Dhawalageri,  with 
its  twenty-eight  thousand  feet  of  elevation,  a  heady  fellow 
of  yesterday,  —  is  not  that  of  a  land  settling  down  by  the 
head,  like  a  foundering  vessel,  but  of  a  land  whose  hills  and 
islands,  like  its  great  aristocratic  families,  have  arisen  from, 
the  level  in  very  various  ages,  and  under  the  operation  of 
circumstances  essentially  diverse. 

We  left  behind  us  the  islands  of  Lttnga,  Luing,  and  Seil, 
and  entered  the  narrow  Sound  of  Kerrera,  with  its  border 
of  Old  Red  conglomerate  resting  on  the  clay-slate  of  the 
district.  We  had  passed  Esdaile  near  enough  to  see  the 
workmen  employed  in  the  quarries  of  the  island,  so  exten- 
sively known  in  commerce  for  their  roofing  slate,  and  sev- 
eral small  vessels  beside  them,  engaged  in  loading ;  and 
now  we  had  got  a  step  higher  in  the  geological  scale,  and 
could  mark  from  the  deck  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
conglomerate,  which,  in  cliffs  washed  by  the  sea,  when  the 
binding  matrix  is  softer  than  the  pebbles  which  it  encloses, 
roughens,  instead  of  being  polished,  by  the  action  of  the 
waves,  and  which,  along  the  eastern  side  of  the  Sound  here, 
seems  as  if  formed  of  cannon-shot,  of  all  sizes,  embedded  in 
cement.  The  Sound  terminates  in  the  beautiful  bay  of 
Oban,  so  quiet  and  sheltered,  with  its  two  island  break- 
waters in  front,  —  its  semicircular  sweep  of  hill  behind,  — 
its  long  white-walled  village,  bent  like  a  bow,  to  conform  to 
the  inflection  of  the  shore,  —  its  mural  precipices  behind, 
tapestried  with  ivy,  —  its  rich  patches  of  green  pasture,  — 
its  bosky  dingles  of  shrub  and  tree,  —  and,  perched  on  the 


20  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY  J   OR, 

seaward  promontory,  its  old,  time-eaten  keep.  "In  one 
part  of  the  harbor  of  Oban,"  says  Dr.  James  Anderson,  in 
his  "Practical  Treatise  on  Peat  Moss,"  (1794),  "where 
the  depth  of  the  sea  is  about  twenty  fathoms,  the  bottom  is 
found  to  consist  of  quick  peat,  which  affords  no  safe 
anchorage."  I  made  inquiry  at  the  captain  of  the  steamer, 
regarding  this  submerged  deposit,  but  he  had  never  heard 
of  it.  There  are,  however,  many  such  on  the  coasts  of 
both  Britain  and  Ireland.  We  staid  at  Oban  for  several 
hours,  waiting  the  arrival  of  the  Fort  "William  steamer ; 
and,  taking  out  hammer  and  chisel  from  my  bag,  I  stepped 
ashore  to  question  my  ancient  acquaintance,  the  Old  Red 
conglomerate,  and  was  fortunate  enough  to  meet  on  the 
pier-head,  as  I  landed,  one  of  the  best  of  companions  for 
assisting  in  such  work,  Mr.  Colin  Elder,  of  Isle  Ornsay,  — 
the  gentleman  who  had  so  kindly  furnished  my  friend  Mr. 
Swanson  with  an  asylum  for  his  family,  when  there  was  no 
longer  a  home  for  them  in  Small  Isles.  "  You  are  much  in 
luck,"  he  said,  after  our  first  greeting :  "  one  of  the 
villagers,  in  improving  his  garden,  has  just  made  a  cut  for 
some  fifteen  or  twenty  yards  along  the  face  of  the  precipice 
behind  the  village,  and  laid  open  the  line  of  junction 
between  the  conglomerate  and  the  clay-slate.  Let  us  go 
and  see  it." 

I  found  several  things  worthy  of  notice  in  the  chance 
section  to  which  I  was  thus  introduced.  The  conglomerate 
lies  uncomformably  along  the  edges  of  the  slate  strata,  which 
present  under  it  an  appearance  exactly  similar  to  that 
which  they  exhibit  under  the  rolled  stones  and  shingle 
of  the  neighboring  shore,  where  we  find  them  laid  bare 
beside  the  harbor,  for  several  hundred  yards.  And,  mixed 
with  the  pebbles  of  various  character  and  origin  of  which 
the  conglomerate  is  mainly  composed,  we  see  detached 
masses  of  the  slate,  that  still  exhibit  on  their  edges  the 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE  AMONG    THE  HEBRIDES.  21 

identical  lines  of  fracture  characteristic  of  the  rock,  which 
they  received,  when  torn  from  the  mass  below,  myriads  of 
ages  before.  In  the  incalculably  remote  period  in  which 
the  conglomerate  base  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  was 
formed,  the  clay-slate  of  this  district  had  been  exactly  the 
same  sort  of  rock  that  it  is  now.  Some  long  anterior  con- 
vulsion had  upturned  its  strata,  and  the  sweep  of  water, 
mingled  with  broken  fragments  of  stone,  had  worn  smooth 
the  exposed  edges,  just  as  a  similar  agency  wears  the  edges 
exposed  at  the  present  time.  Quarries  might  have  been 
opened  in  this  rock,  as  now,  for  a  roofing-slate,  had  there 
been  quarricrs  to  open  them,  or  houses  to  roof  over ;  it  was 
in  every  respect  as  ancient  a  looking  stone  then  as  in  the 
present  late  age  of  the  world.  There  are  no  sermons  that 
seem  stranger  or  more  impressive  to  one  who  has  acquired 
just  a  little  of  the  language  in  which  they  are  preached, 
than  those  which,  according  to  the  poet,  are  to  be  found  in 
stones ;  a  bit  of  fractured  slate,  embedded  among  a  mass 
of  rounded  pebbles,  proves  voluble  with  ideas  of  a  kind 
almost  too  large  for  the  mind  of  man  to  grasp.  The 
eternity  that  hath  passed  is  an  ocean  without  a  further 
shore,  and  a  finite  conception  may  in  vain  attempt  to  span 
it  over.  But  from  the  beach,  strewed  with  wrecks,  on 
which  we  stand  to  contemplate  it,  we  see  far  out  towards 
the  cloudy  horizon,  many  a  dim  islet  and  many  a  pinnacled 
rock,  the  sepulchres  of  successive  eras,  —  the  monuments 
of  consecutive  creations:  the  entire  prospect  is  studded 
over  with  these  landmarks  of  a  hoar  antiquity,  which, 
measuring  out  space  from  space,  constitute  the  vast  whole 
a  province  of  time ;  nor  can  the  eye  reach  to  the  open, 
shoreless  infinitude  beyond,  in  which  only  God  existed; 
and,  as  in  a  sea-scene  in  nature,  in  which  headland  stretches 
dim  and  blue  beyond  headland,  and  islet  beyond  islet,  the 
distance  seems  not  lessened,  but  increased,  by  the  crowded 


22  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY  ;   OR, 

objects  —  -we  borrow  a  larger,  not  a  smaller  idea  of  the 
distant  eternity,  from  the  vastness  of  the  measured  periods 
that  occur  between. 

Over  the  lower  bed  of  conglomerate,  which  here,  as  on 
the  east  coast,  is  of  great  thickness,  we  find  a  bed  of  gray 
stratified  clay,  containing  a  few  calcareo-argillaceous  nod- 
ules. The  conglomerate  cliffs  to  the  north  of  the  village 
present  appearances  highly  interesting  to  the  geologist. 
Rising  in  a  long  wall  within  the  pleasure-grounds  of 
Dunolly  castle,  we  find  them  wooded  atop  and  at  the  base; 
while  immediately  at  their  feet  there  stretches  out  a 
grassy  lawn,  traversed  by  the  road  from  the  village  to  the 
castle,  which  sinks  with  a  gradual  slope  into  the  existing 
sea-beach,  but  which  ages  ago  must  have  been  a  sea-beach 
itself.  "We  see  the  bases  of  the  precipices  hollowed  and 
worn,  with  all  their  rents  and  crevices  widened  into  caves ; 
and  mark,  at  a  picturesque  angle  of  the  rock,  what  must 
have  been  once  an  insulated  sea-stack,  some  thirty  or  forty 
feet  in  height,  standing  up  from  amid  the  rank  grass,  as  at 
one  time  it  stood  up  from  amid  the  waves.  Tufts  of  fern 
and  sprays  of  ivy  bristle  from  its  sides,  once  roughened  by 
the  serrated  kelp-weed  and  the  tangle.  The  Highlanders 
call  it  M'Dougal's  Dog-stone,  and  say  that  the  old  chief- 
tains of  Lome  made  use  of  it  as  a  post  to  which  to  fasten 
their  dogs,  —  animals  wild  and  gigantic  as  themselves, — 
when  the  hunters  were  gathering  to  rendezvous,  and  the 
impatient  beagles  struggled  to  break  away  and  begin  the 
chase  on  their  own  behalf.  It  owes  its  existence  as  a 
stack — for  the  precipice  in  which  it  was  once  included  has 
receded  from  around  it  for  yards  —  to  an  immense  boulder 
in  its  base  —  by  far  the  largest  stone  I  ever  saw  in  an  Old 
Red  conglomerate.  The  mass  is  of  a  rudely  rhomboidal 
form,  and  measures  nearly  twelve  feet  in  the  line  of  its 
largest  diagonal.  A  second  huge  pebble  in  the  same 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.  23 

detached  spire  measures  four  feet  by  about  three.  Both 
have  their  edges  much  rounded,  as  if,  ere  their  deposition 
in  the  conglomerate,  they  had  been  long  exposed  to  the 
wear  of  the  sea ;  and  both  are  composed  of  an  earthy 
amygdaloidal  trap.  I  have  stated  elsewhere  ["  Old  Red 
Sandstone,"  Chaper  XII.],  that  I  had  scarce  ever  seen  a 
stone  in  the  Old  Red  conglomerate  which  I  could  not  raise 
from  the  ground ;  and  ere  I  said  so  I  had  examined  no  in- 
considerable extent  of  this  deposit,  chiefly,  however,  along 
the  eastern  coast  of  Scotland,  where  its  larger  pebbles 
rarely  exceed  two  hundred  weight.  How  account  for  the 
occurrence  of  pebbles  of  so  gigantic  a  size  here  ?  We  can 
but  guess  at  a  solution,  and  that  very  vaguely.  The  islands 
of  Mull  and  Kerrera  form,  in  the  present  state  of  things, 
inner  and  outer  breakwaters  between  what  is  now  the  coast 
of  Oban  and  the  waves  of  the  Atlantic ;  but  Mull,  in  the 
times  of  even  the  Oolite,  must  have  existed  as  a  mere  sea- 
bottom  ;  and  Kerrera,  composed  mainly  of  trap,  which  has 
brought  with  it  to  the  surface  patches  of  the  conglomerate, 
must,  when  the  conglomerate  was  in  forming,  have  been  a 
mere  sea-bottom  also.  Is  it  not  possible,  that  when  the 
breakwaters  tcere  not,  the  Atlantic  teas,  and  that  its  tem- 
pests, which  in  the  present  time  can  transport  vast  rocks 
for  hundreds  of  yards  along  the  exposed  coasts  of  Shetland 
and  Orkney,  may  have  been  the  agent  here  in  the  transport 
of  these  huge  pebbles  of  the  Old  Red  conglomerate? 
"Rocks  that  two  or  three  men  could  not  lift,"  say  the 
Messrs.  Anderson  of  Inverness,  in  describing  the  storms 
of  Orkney,  "  are  washed  about  even  on  the  tops  of  cliffs, 
which  are  between  sixty  and  a  hundred  feet  above  the 
surface  of  the  sea,  when  smooth  ;  and  detached  masses  of 
rock,  of  an  enormous  size,  are  well  known  to  have  been 
carried  a  considerable  distance  between  low  and  high-water 
mark."  "A  little  way  from  the  Brough,"  says  Dr.  Patrick 


24         THE  CRUISE  OP  THE  BETSEY J  OB, 

ISTeill,  in  his  '  Tour  through  Orkney  and  Shetland,'  "  we 
saw  the  prodigious  effects  of  a  late  winter  storm :  many 
great  stones,  one  of  them  of  several  tons  weight,  had 
been  tossed  up  a  precipice  twenty  or  thirty  feet  high,  and 
laid  fairly  on  the  green  sward."  There  is  something 
farther  worthy  of  notice  in  the  stone  of  which  the  two 
boulders  of  the  Dog-stack  are  composed.  No  species  of 
rock  occurs  more  abundantly  in  the  embedded  pebbles  of 
this  ancient  conglomerate  than  rocks  of  the  trap  family. 
"We  find  in  it  trap-porphyries,  greenstones,  clinkstones, 
basalts,  and  amygdaloids,  largely  mingled  with  fragments 
of  the  granitic,  clay-slate,  and  quartz  rocks.  The  Plutonic 
agencies  must  have  been  active  in  the  locality  for  periods 
amazingly  protracted ;  and  many  of  the  masses  protruded 
at  a  very  early  time  seem  identical  in  their  composition 
with  rocks  of  the  trap  family,  which  in  other  parts  of  the 
country  we  find  referred  to  much  later  eras.  There  occur 
in  this  deposit  rolled  pebbles  of  a  basalt,  which  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Edinburgh  would  be  deemed  considerably 
more  modern  than  the  times  of  the  Mountain  Limestone, 
and  in  the  Isle  of  Skye,  considerably  more  modern  than 
the  times  of  the  Oolite. 

The  sun-light  was  showering  its  last  slant  rays  on 
island  and  loch,  and  then  retreating  upwards  along  the 
higher  hills,  chased  by  the  shadows,  as  our  boat  quitted 
the  bay  of  Oban,  and  stretched  northwards,  along  the  end 
of  green  Lismore,  for  the  Sound  of  Mull.  We  had  just 
enough  of  day  left,  as  we  reached  mid  sea,  to  show  us  the 
gray  fronts  of  the  three  ancient  castles, —  which  at  this 
point  may  be  at  once  seen  from  the  deck,  —  Dunolly, 
Duart,  and  Dunstaffnage ;  and  enough  left  us  as  we 
entered  the  Sound,  to  show,  and  barely  show,  the  Lady 
Rock,  famous  in  tradition,  and  made  classic  by  the  pen  of 
Campbell,  raising  its  black  back  amid  the  tides,  like  a 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE    HEBRIDES.  25 

belated  porpoise.  And  then  twilight  deepened  into  night, 
and  we  went  snorting  through  the  Strait  with  a  stream  of 
green  light  curling  off  from  either  bow  in  the  calm, 
towards  the  high  dim  land,  that  seemed  standing  up  on 
both  sides  like  tall  hedges  over  a  green  lane.  "We 
entered  the  Bay  of  Tobermory  about  midnight,  and  cast 
anchor  amid  a  group  of  little  vessels.  An  exceedingly 
small  boat  shot  out  from  the  side  of  a  yacht  of  rather  dim- 
inutive proportions,  but  tautly  rigged  for  her  size,  and 
bearing  an  outrigger  astern.  The  water  this  evening  was 
full  of  phosphoric  matter,  and  it  gleamed  and  sparkled 
around  the  little  boat  like  a  northern  aurora  around  a  dark 
cloudlet.  There  was^j ust  light  enough  to  show  that  the 
oars  were  plied  by  a  sailor-like  man  in  a  Guernsey  frock, 
and  that  another  sailor-like  man,  —  the  skipper,  mayhap,  — 
attired  in  a  cap  and  pea-jacket,  stood  in  the  stern.  The 
man  in  the  Guernsey  frock  was  John  Stewart,  sole  mate 
and  half  the  crew  of  the  Free  Church  yacht  Betsey ;  and 
the  skipper-like  man  in  the  pea-jacket  was  my  friend  the 
minister  of  the  Protestants  of  Small  Isles.  In  five  min- 
utes more  I  was  sitting  with  Mr.  Elder  beside  the  little 
iron  stove  in  the  cabin  of  the  Betsey ;  and  the  minister, 
divested  of  his  cap  and  jacket,  but  still  looking  the  verita- 
ble skipper  to  admiration,  was  busied  in  making  us  a 
rather  late  tea. 

The  cabin,  —  my  home  for  the  greater  part  of  the  three 
following  weeks,  and  that  of  my  friend  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  previous  twelvemonth,  —  I  found  to  be  an 
apartment  about  twice  the  size  of  a  common  bed,  and  just 
lofty  enough  under  the  'beams  to  permit  a  man  of  five  feet 
eleven  to  stand  erect  in  his  night-cap.  A  large  table, 
lashed  to  the  floor,  furnished  with  tiers  of  drawers  of  all 
sorts  and  sizes,  and  bearing  a  writing  desk  bound  to  it 
a-top,  occupied  the  middle  space,  leaving  just  room  enough 

3 


26  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

for  a  person  to  pass  between  its  edges  and  the  narrow 
coffin-like  beds  in  the  sides,  and  space  enough  at  its  fore- 
end  for  two  seats  in  front  of  the  stove.  A  jealously  barred 
skylight  opened  above;  and  there  depended  from  it  this 
evening  a  close  lantern-looking  lamp,  sufficiently  valua- 
ble, no  doubt,  in  foul  weather,  but  dreary  and  dim  on  the 
occasions  when  all  one  really  wished  from  it  was  light. 
The  peculiar  furniture  of  the  place  gave  evidence  to  the 
mixed  nature  of  my  friend's  employment.  A  well-thumbed 
chart  of  the  Western  Islands  lay  across  an  equally  well- 
thumbed  volume  of  Henry's  "  Commentary."  There  was 
a  Polyglot  and  a  spy-glass  in  one  corner,  and  a  copy  of 
Calvin's  "Institutes,"  with  the  la?est  edition  of  "The 
Coaster's  Sailing  Directions,"  in  another ;  while  in  an  adjoin- 
ing state-room,  nearly  large  enough  to  accommodate  an 
arm-chair,  if  the  chair  could  have  but  contrived  to  get 
into  it,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  my  friend's  printing  press 
and  his  case  of  types,  canopied  overhead  by  the  blue 
ancient  of  the  vessel,  bearing,  in  stately  six-inch  letters  of 
white  bunting,  the  legend,  "FREE  CHURCH  YACHT."  A 
door  opened,  which  communicated  with  the  forecastle,  and 
John  Stewart,  stooping  very  much,  to  accommodate  him- 
self to  the  low-roofed  passage,  thrust  in  a  plate  of  fresh 
herrings,  splendidly  toasted,  to  give  substantiality  and 
relish  to  our  tea.  The  little  rude  forecastle,  a  considerably 
smaller  apartment  than  the  cabin,  was  all  a-glow  with  the 
bright  fire  in  the  coppers,  itself  invisible ;  we  could  see  the 
chain-cable  dangling  from  the  hatchway  to  the  floor,  and 
John  Stewart's  companion,  a  powerful-looking,  handsome 
young  man,  with  broad  bare  breast,  and  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
squatted  full  in  front  of  the  blaze,  like  the  household 
goblin  described  by  Milton,  or  the  "  Christmas  Present " 
of  Dickens.  Mr.  Elder  left  us  for  the  steamer,  in  which  he 
prosecuted  his  voyage  next  morning  to  Skye ;  and  we 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE    HEBRIDES.  27 

tumbled  in,  each  to  his  narrow  bed,  —  comfortable  enough 
sort  of  resting  places,  though  not  over  soft;  and  slept 
so  soundly,  that  we  failed  to  mark  Mr.  Elder's  return  for  a 
few  seconds,  a  little  after  daybreak.  I  found  at  my  bed- 
side, when  I  awoke,  a  fragment  of  rock  which  he  had 
brought  from  the  shore,  charged  with  Liasic  fossils ;  and  a 
note  he  had  written,  to  say  that  the  deposit  to  which  it 
belonged  occurred  in  the  trap  immediately  above  the 
village-mill ;  and  further,  to  call  my  attention  to  a  house 
near  the  middle  of  the  village,  built  of  a  mouldering  red 
sandstone,  which  had  been  found  in  situ  in  digging  the 
foundations.  I  had  but  little  time  for  the  work  of  explor- 
ation in  Mull,  and  the  information  thus  kindly  rendered 
enabled  me  to  economize  it. 

The  village  of  Tobermory  resembles  that  of  Oban.  A 
quiet  bay  has  its  secure  island-breakwater  in  front ;  a  line 
of  tall,  well-built  houses,  not  in  the  least  rural  in  their 
aspect,  but  that  seem  rather  as  if  they  had  been  trans- 
ported from  the  centre  of  some  stately  city  entire  and  at 
once,  sweeps  round  its  inner  inflection,  like  a  bent  bow  j 
and  an  amphitheatre  of  mingled  rock  and  wood  rises 
behind.  With  all  its  beauty,  however,  there  hangs  about 
the  village  an  air  of  melancholy.  Like  some  of  the  other 
western  coast  villages,  it  seems  not  to  have  grown,  piece- 
meal, as  a  village  ought,  but  to  have  been  made  wholesale, 
as  Frankenstein  made  his  man  ;  and  to  be  ever  asking,  and 
never  more  incessantly  than  when  it  is  at  its  quietest,  why 
it  should  have  been  made  at  all  ?  The  remains  of  the 
Florida,  a  gallant  Spanish  ship,  lie  off  it  shores,  a  wreck 
of  the  Invincible  Armada,  "  deep  whelmed,"  according  to 
Thompson, 

"  What  time, 

Snatched  sudden  by  the  vengeful  blast, 
The  scattered  vessels  drove,  and  on  blind  shelve, 


28          THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

And  pointed  rock  that  marks  th'  indented  shore, 
Eelentless  dashed,  where  loud  the  northern  main 
Howls  through  the  fractured  Caledonian  isles." 

Macculloch  relates,  that  there  was  an  attempt  made,  rather 
more  than  a  century  ago,  to  weigh  up  the  Florida,  which, 
ended  in  the  weighing  up  of  merely  a  few  of  her  guns, 
some  of  them  of  iron  greatly  corroded ;  and  that,  on 
scraping  them,  they  became  so  hot  under  the  hand  that 
they  could  not  be  touched,  but  that  they  lost  this  curious 
property  after  a  few  hours'  exposure  to  the  air.  There 
have  since  been  repeated  instances  elsewhere,  he  adds,  of 
the  same  phenomenon,  and  chemistry  has  lent  its  solution 
of  the  principles  on  which  it  occurs;  but,  in  the  year  1740, 
ere  the  riddle  was  read,  it  must  have  been  deemed  a 
thoroughly  magical  one  by  the  simple  islanders  of  Mull. 
It  would  seem  as  if  the  guns,  heated  in  the  contest  with 
Drake,  Hawkins,  and  Frobisher,  had  again  kindled,  under 
some  supernatural  influence,  with  the  intense  glow  of 
the  lost  battle. 

The  morning  was  showery;  but  it  cleared  up  a  little 
after  ten,  and  we  landed  to  explore.  "We  found  the  mill  a 
little  to  the  south  of  the  village,  where  a  small  stream 
descends,  all  foam  and  uproar,  from  the  higher  grounds 
along  a  rocky  channel  half-hidden  by  brushwood ;  and 
the  Liasic  bed  occurs  in  an  exposed  front  directly  over  it, 
coped  by  a  thick  bed  of  amygdaloidal  trap.  The  organ- 
isms are  numerous ;  and,  when  we  dig  into  the  bank 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  weathering  influences,  we  find 
them  delicately  preserved,  though  after  a  fashion  that 
renders  difficult  their  safe  removal.  Originally  the  bed 
must  have  existed  as  a  brown  argillaceous  mud,  somewhat 
resembling  that  which  forms  in  the  course  of  years,  under 
a  scalp  of  muscles ;  and  it  has  hardened  into  a  more 
eilt-like  clay,  in  which  the  fossils  occur,  not  as  petrifactions, 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.  29 

but  as  shells  in  a  state  of  decay,  except  in  some  rare  cases, 
in  which  a  calcareous  nodule  has  formed  within  or  around 
them.  Viewed  in  the  group,  they  seem  of  an  intermediate 
character,  between  the  shells  of  the  Lias  and  the  Oolite. 
One  of  the  first  fossils  I  disinterred  was  the  Gryphaea 
obliquata,  —  a  shell  characteristic  of  the  Liasic  formation ; 
and  the  fossil  immediately  after,  the  Pholadomy  aequalis, 
a  shell  of  the  Oolitic  one.  There  occurs  in  great  numbers 
a  species  of  small  Pecten,  —  some  of  the  specimens  scarce 
larger  than  a  herring  scale ;  a  minute  Ostrea,  a  sulcated 
Terebratula,  an  Isocardia,  a  Pullastra,  and  groups  of 
broken  serpulae  in  vast  abundance.  The  deposit  has  also 
its  three  species  of  Ammonite,  existing  as  mere  impressions 
in  the  clay;  and  at  least  two  species  of  Belemnite,  —  one 
of  the  two  somewhat  resembling  the  Belemnites  abbrevia- 
tus,  but  smaller  and  rather  more  elongated:  while  the 
other,  of  a  spindle  form,  diminishing  at  both  ends,  reminds 
one  of  the  Belemnites  minimus  of  the  Gault.  The  Red 
Snndstone  in  the  centre  of  the  village  occurs  detached, 
like  this  Liasic  bed,  amid  the  prevailing  trap,  and  may  be 
seen  in  situ  beside  the  southern  gable  of  the  tall,  deserted 
looking  house  at  the  hill-foot,  that  has  been  built  of  it. 
It  is  a  soft,  coarse-grained,  mouldering  stone,  ill  fitted 
for  the  purposes  of  the  architect ;  and  more  nearly  resem- 
bles the  New  Red  Sandstone  of  England  and  Dumfries- 
shire, than  any  other  rock  I  have  yet  seen  in  the  north  of 
Scotland.  I  failed  to  detect  in  it  aught  organic. 

We  weighed  anchor  about  two  o'clock,  and  beat  gal- 
lantly out  the  Sound,  in  the  face  of  an  intermittent 
baffling  wind  and  a  heavy  swell  from  the  sea.  I  would 
fain  have  approached  nearer  the  precipices  of  Ardnamur- 
chan,  to  trace  along  their  inaccessible  fronts  the  strange 
reticulations  of  trap  figured  by  Macculloch  ;  but  prudence 

and  the  skipper  forbade  our  trusting  even  the  docile  little 

3* 


30  THE  CKUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY. 

Betsey,  on  one  of  the  most  formidable  lee  snores  in  Scot- 
land, in  winds  so  light  and  variable,  and  with  the  swell  so 
high.  We  could  hear  the  deep  roar  of  the  surf  for  miles, 
and  see  its  undulating  strip  of  white  flickering  under  stack 
and  cliff.  The  scenery  here  seems  rich  in  legendary  asso- 
ciation. At  one  tack  we  bore  into  Bloody  Bay,  on  the 
Mull  coast,  —  the  scene  of  a  naval  battle  between  two 
island  chiefs;  at  another,  we  approached,  on  the  mainland, 
a  cave  inaccessible  save  from  the  sea,  long  the  haunt  of  a 
ruthless  Highland  pirate.  Ere  we  rounded  the  headland 
of  Ardnamui-chan,  the  slant  light  of  evening  was  gleaming 
athwart  the  green  acclivities  of  Mull,  barring  them  with 
long  horizontal  lines  of  shadow,  where  the  trap  terraces 
rise  step  beyond  step,  in  the  characteristic  stair-like 
arrangement  to  which  the  rock  owes  its  name ;  and  the  sun 
set  as  we  were  bearing  down  in  one  long  tack  on  the 
Small  Isles.  We  passed  the  Isle  of  Muck,  with  its  one 
low  hill ;  saw  the  pyramidal  mountains  of  Rum  looming 
tall  in  the  ofling;  and  then,  running  along  the  Isle  of  Eigg, 
with  its  colossal  Scuir  rising  between  us  and  the  sky,  as 
if  it  were  a  piece  of  Babylonian  wall,  or  of  the  great  wall 
of  China,  only  vastly  larger,  set  down  on  the  ridge  of  a 
mountain,  we  entered  the  channel  which  separates  the 
island  from  one  of  its  dependencies,  Eilean  Chaisteil,  and 
cast  anchor  in  the  tideway,  about  fifty  yards  from  the 
rocks.  We  were  now  at  home,  —  the  only  home  which 
the  proprietor  of  the  island  permits  to  the  islanders'  min- 
ister; and,  after  getting  warm  and  comfortable  over  the 
stove  and  a  cup  of  tea,  we  did  what  all  sensible  men  do  in 
their  own  homes  when  the  night  wears  late,  —  got  into  bed. 


CHAPTER    II. 

The  Minister's  Larder  —  No  Harbor — Eigg  Shoes  —  Tormentilla  erecta  —  For  the 
Witness'  Sake  —  Eilean  Chaisteil  —  Appearance  of  Eigg  —  Chapel  of  St. 
Donan  —  Shell-sand  —  Origin  of  Secondary  Calcareous  Hock  suggested  — 
Exploration  of  Eigg  —  Pitchstone  Veins — A  Bone  Cave  —  Massacre  at  Eigg  — 
Grouping  of  Human  Bones  in  the  Cave  —  Eelics — The  Horse's  Tooth — A 
Copper  Sewing  Needle—  Teeth  found  —  Man  a  worse  Animal  than  his  Teeth 
show  him  to  have  been  designed  for  —  Story  of  the  Massacre — Another  Ver- 
sion—  Scuir  of  Eigg — The  Scuir  a  Giant's  Causeway — Character  of  the 
Columns—  Remains  of  a  Prostrate  Forest. 

WE  had  rich  tea  this  morning.  The  minister  was 
among  his  people ;  and  our  first  evidence  of  the  fact  came 
in  the  agreeable  form  of  three  bottles  of  fine  fresh  cream 
from  the  shore.  Then  followed  an  ample  baking  of  nice 
oaten  cakes.  The  material  out  of  which  the  cakes  were 
manufactured  had  been  sent  from  the  minister's  store 
aboard,  — for  oatmeal  in  Eigg  is  rather  a  scarce  commodity 
in  the  middle  of  July ;  but  they  had  borrowed  a  crispness 
and  flavor  from  the  island,  that  the  meal,  left  to  its  own 
resources,  could  scarcely  have  communicated,;  and  the 
golden-colored  cylinder  of  fresh  butter  which  accompanied 
them  was  all  the  island's  own.  There  was  an  ample  sup- 
ply of  eggs  too,  as  one  not  quite  a  conjuror  might  have 
expected  from  a  country  bearing  such  a  name,  —  eggs  with 
the  milk  in  them ;  and,  with  cream,  butter,  oaten  cakes, 
eggs,  and  tea,  all  of  the  best,  and  with  sharp-set  sea-air 
appetites  to  boot,  we  fared  sumptuously.  There  is  properly 
no  harbor  in  the  island.  We  lay  in  a  narrow  channel, 
through  which,  twice  every  twenty-four  hours,  the  tides 
sweep  powerfully  in  one  direction,  and  then  as  powerfully 


32  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

in  the  direction  opposite ;  and  our  anchors  had  a  trick  of 
getting  foul,  and  canting  stock  downwards  in  the  loose 
sand,  which,  with  pointed  rocks  all  around  us,  over  which 
the  current  ran  races,  seemed  a  very  shrewd  sort  of  trick 
indeed.  But  a  kedge  and  halser,  stretched  thwartwise  to  a 
neighboring  crag,  and  jammed  fast  in  a  crevice,  served  in 
moderate  weather  to  keep  us  tolerably  right.  In  the 
severer  seasons,  however,  the  kedge  is  found  inadequate, 
and  the  minister  has  to  hoist  sail  and  make  out  for  the 
open  sea,  as  if  served  with  a  sudden  summons  of  eject- 
ment. 

Among  the  various  things  brought  aboard  this  morning, 
there  was  a  pair  of  island  shoes  for  the  minister's  cabin  use, 
that  struck  my  fancy  not  a  little.  They  were  all  around 
of  a  deep  madder  red  color,  soles,  welts  and  upp£rs ; 
and,  though  somewhat  resembling  in  form  the  little  yawl 
of  the  Betsey,  were  sewed  not  unskilfully  with  thongs ; 
and  their  peculiar  style  of  tie  seemed  of  a  kind  suited  to 
furnish  with  new  idea  a  fashionable  shoemaker  of  the 
metropolis.  They  were  altogether  the  production  of  Eigg, 
from  the  skin  out  of  which  they  had  been  cut,  with  the 
lime  that  had  prepared  it  for  the  tan,  and  the  root  by 
which  the  tan  had  been  furnished,  down  to  the  last  on 
which  they  had  been  moulded,  and  the  artisan  that  had 
cast  them  off,  a  pair  of  finished  shoes.  There  are  few 
trees,  and,  of  course,  no  bark  to  spare,  in  the  island ;  but 
the  islanders  find  a  substitute  in  the  astringent  lobiferous 
root  of  the  Tormentilla  erecta,  which  they  dig  out  for  the 
purpose  among  the  heath,  at  no  inconsiderable  expense  of 
time  and  trouble.  I  was  informed  by  John  Stewart,  an 
adept  in  all  the  multifarious  arts  of  the  island,  from  the 
tanning  of  leather  and  the  tilling  of  land,  to  the  building 
of  a  house  or  the  working  of  a  ship,  that  the  infusion  of 
root  had  to  be  thrice  changed  for  every  skin,  and  that  it 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.  33 

took  a  man  nearly  a  day  to  gather  roots  enough  for  a  single 
infusion.  I  was  further  informed  that  it  was  not  unusual 
for  the  owner  of  a  skin  to  give  it  to  some  neighbor  to  tan, 
and  that,  the  process  finished,  it  was  divided  equally 
between  them,  the  time  and  trouble  bestowed  on  it  by  the 
one  being  deemed  equivalent  to  the  property  held  in  it  by 
the  other.  I  wished  to  call  a  pair  of  these  primitive-looking 
shoes  my  own,  and  no  sooner  was  the  wish  expressed,  than 
straightway  one  islander  furnished  me  with  leather,  and 
another  set  to  work  upon  the  shoes.  When  I  came  to 
speak  of  remuneration,  however,  the  islanders  shook  their 
heads.  "  No,  no,  not  from  the  Witness :  there  are  not 
many  that  take  our  part,  and  the  Witness  does."  I  hold 
the  shoes,  therefore,  as  my  first  retainer,  determined,  on  all 
occasions  of  just  quarrel,  to  make  common  cause  with  the 
poor  islanders. 

The  view  from  the  anchoring  ground  presents  some  very 
striking  features.  Between  us  and  the  sea  lies  Eilean 
Chaisteil,  a  rocky  trap  islet,  about  half  a  mile  hi  length  by 
a  few  hundred  yards  in  breadth;  poor  in  pastures,  but 
peculiarly  rich  in  sea-weed,  of  which  John  Stewart  used, 
he  informed  me,  to  make  finer  kelp,  ere  the  trade  was  put 
down  by  act  of  Parliament,  than  could  be  made  elsewhere 
in  Eigg.  This  islet  bore,  in  the  remote  past,  its  rude  fort 
or  dun,  long  since  sunk  into  a  few  grassy  mounds ;  and 
hence  its  name.  On  the  landward  side  rises  the  island  of 
Eigg  proper,  resembling  in  outline  two  wedges,  placed 
point  to  point  on  a  board.  The  centre  is  occupied  by  a 
deep  angular  gap,  from  which  the  ground  slopes  upward  on 
both  sides,  till,  attaining  its  extreme  height  at  the  opposite 
ends  of  the  island,  it  drops  suddenly  on  the  sea.  In  the 
northern  rising  ground  the  wedge-like  outline  is  complete  ; 
in  the  southern  one  it  is  somewhat  modified  by  the  gigantic 
Scuir,  which  rises  direct  on  the  apex  of  the  height,  i.  e.,  the 


84  THE   CEUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY J   OR, 

thick  part  of  the  wedge ;  and  which,  seen  bows-on  from 
this  point  of  view,  resembles  some  vast  donjon  keep,  taller, 
from  base  to  summit,  by  about  a  hundred  feet,  than  the 
dome  of  St.  Paul's.  The  upper  slopes  of  the  island  are 
brown  and  moory,  and  present  little  on  which  the  eye  may 
rest,  save  a  few  trap  terraces,  with  rudely  columnar  fronts ; 
its  middle  space  is  mottled  with  patches  of  green,  and 
studded  with  dingy  cottages,  each  of  which  this  morning, 
just  a  little  before  the  breakfast  hour,  had  its  own  blue 
cloudlet  of  smoke  diffused  ai-ound  it;  while  along  the 
beach,  patches  of  level  sand,  alternated  with  tracts  of  green 
bank,  or  both,  give  place  to  stately  ranges  of  basaltic 
columns,  or  dingy  groups  of  detached  rocks.  Immediately 
in  front  of  the  central  hollow,  as  if  skilfully  introduced,  to 
relieve  the  tamest  part  of  the  prospect,  a  noble  Avail  of 
semicircular  columns  rises  some  eighty  or  a  hundred  feet 
over  the  shore ;  and  on  a  green  slope,  directly  above,  we 
see  the  picturesque  ruins  of  the  Chapel  of  St.  Donan,  one 
of  the  disciples  of  Columba,  and  the  Culdee  saint  and 
apostle  of  the  island. 

One  of  the  things  that  first  struck  me,  as  I  got  on  deck 
this  morning,  was  the  extreme  whiteness  of  the  sand.  I 
could  see  it  gleaming  bright  through  the  transparent  green 
of  the  sea,  three  fathoms  below  our  keel,  and,  in  a  little  flat 
bay  directly  opposite,  it  presented  almost  the  appearance 
of  pulverized  chalk.  A  stronger  contrast  to  the  dingy 
trap-rocks  around  which  it  lies  could  scarce  be  produced, 
had  contrast  for  effect's  sake  been  the  object.  On  landing 
on  the  exposed  shelf  to  which  we  had  fastened  our  halser,  I 
found  the  origin  of  the  sand  interestingly  exhibited.  The 
hollows  of  the  rock,  a  rough  trachyte,  with  a  surface  like 
that  of  a  steel  rasp,  were  filled  with  handfuls  of  broken 
shells  thrown  up  by  the  surf  from  the  sea-banks  beyond : 
fragments  of  echini,  bits  of  the  valves  of  razor-fish,  the 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  35 

island  cyprina,  mactridge,  buccinidse,  and  fractured  peri- 
winkles, lay  heaped  together  in  vast  abundance.  In  hollow 
after  hollow,  as  I  passed  shorewards,  I  found  the  fragments 
more  and  more  comminuted,  just  as,  in  passing  along  the 
successive  vats  of  a  paper-mill,  one  finds  the  linen  rags 
more  and  more  disintegrated  by  the  cylinders ;  and  imme- 
diately beyond  the  inner  edge  of  the  shelf,  which  is  of  con- 
siderable extent,  lies  the  flat  bay,  the  ultimate  recipient  of 
the  whole,  filled  to  the  depth  of  several  feet,  and  to  the 
extent  of  several  hundred  yards,  with  a  pure  shell-sand, 
the  greater  part  of  which  had  been  thus  washed  ashore  in 
handfuls,  and  ground  down  by  the  blended  agency  of  the 
trachyte  and  the  surf.  Once  formed,  however,  in  this  way 
it  began  to  receive  accessions  from  the  exuviaa  of  animals 
that  love  such  localities,  —  the  deep  arenaceous  bed  and 
soft  sand-beach ;  and  these  now  form  no  inconsiderable  pro- 
portion of  the  entire  mass.  I  found  the  deposit  thickly 
inhabited  by  spatangi,  razor-fish,  gapers,  and  large,  well- 
conditioned  cockles,  which  seemed  to  have  no  idea  what- 
ever that  they  were  living  amid  the  debris  of  a  charnel 
house.  Such  has  been  the  origin  here  of  a  bed  of  shell-sand, 
consisting  of  many  thousand  tons,  and  of  which  at  least 
eighty  per  cent,  was  once  associated  with  animal  life.  And 
such,  I  doubt  not,  is  the  history  of  many  a  calcareous  rock 
in  the  later  secondary  formations.  There  are  strata,  not  a 
few,  of  the  Cretaceous  and  Oolitic  groups,  that  would  be 
found  —  could  we  but  trace  their  beginnings  with  a  cer- 
tainty and  clearness  equal  to  that  with  which  we  can 
unravel  the  story  of  this  deposit  —  to  be,  like  it,  elabora- 
tions from  dead  matter,  made  through  the  agency  of  animal 
secretion. 

"We  set  out  on  our  first  exploratory  ramble  in  Eigg  an 
hour  before  noon.  The  day  was  bracing  and  breezy,  and  a 
clear  sun  looked  cheerily  down  on  island,  and  strait,  and 


36  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;   OR, 

blue  open  sea.  "We  rowed  southwards  in  our  little  boat, 
through  the  channel  of  Eilean  Chaisteil,  along  the  trap- 
rocks  of  the  island,  and  landed  under  the  two  pitchstone 
veins  of  Eigg,  so  generally  known  among  mineralogists, 
and  of  which  specimens  may  be  found  in  so  many  cabinets. 
They  occur  in  an  earthy,  greenish-black  amygdaloid,  which 
forms  a  range  of  sea-cliffs  varying  in  height  from  thirty  to 
fifty  feet,  and  that,  from  their  sad  hue  and  dull  fracture, 
seem  to  absorb  the  light ;  while  the  veins  themselves,  bright 
and  glistening,  glitter  in  the  sun,  as  if  they  were  streams 
of  water  traversing  the  face  of  the  rock.  The  first 
impression  they  imparted,  in  viewing  them  from  the  boat, 
was,  that  the  inclosing  mass  was  a  pitch  caldron,  rather  of 
the  roughest  and  largest,  and  much  begrimmed  by  soot, 
that  had  cracked  to  the  heat,  and  that  the  fluid  pitch  was 
forcing  its  way  outwards  through  the  rents.  The  veins 
expand  and  contract,  here  diminishing  to  a  strip  a  few 
inches  across,  there  widening  into  a  comparatively  broad 
belt,  some  two  or  three  feet  over ;  and,  as  well  described  by 
M'Culloch,  we  find  the  inclosed  pitchstone  changing  in 
color,  and  assuming  a  lighter  or  darker  hue,  as  it  nears  the 
edge  or  recedes  from  it.  In  the  centre  it  is  of  a  dull  olive 
green,  passing  gradually  into  blue,  which  in  turn  deepens 
into  black ;  and  it  is  exactly  at  the  point  of  contact  with 
the  earthy  amygdaloid  that  the  black  is  most  intense,  and 
the  fracture  of  the  stone  glassiest  and  brightest.  I  was 
lucky  enough  to  detach  a  specimen,  which,  though  scarce 
four  inches  across,  exhibits  the  three  colors  characteristic 
of  the  vein,  —  its  bar  of  olive  green  on  the  one  side,  of 
intense  black  on  the  other,  and  of  blue,  like  that  of  imper- 
fectly fused  bottle-glass,  in  the  centre.  This  curious  rock, — 
so  neai-ly  akin  in  composition  and  appearance  to  obsidian, — 
a  mineral  which,  in  its  dense  form,  closely  resembles  the 
coarse  dark-colored  glass  of  which  common  bottles  are 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  u7 

made,  and  which,  in  its  lighter  form,  exists  as  pumice,  — con- 
stitutes one  of  the  links  that  connect  the  trap  with  the 
unequivocally  volcanic  rocks.  The  one  mineral  may  be 
seen  beside  smoking  crater,  as  in  the  Lipari  Isles,  passing 
into  pumice  ;  while  the  other  may  be  converted  into  a  sub- 
stance almost  identical  with  pumice,  by  the  chemist.  "  It 
is  stated  by  the  Honorable  George  Knox,  of  Dublin,"  says 
Mr.  Robert  Allan,  in  his  valuable  mineralogical  work,  "  that 
the  pitchstone  of  Newry,  on  being  exposed  to  a  high  tem- 
perature, loses  its  bitumen  and  water,  and  is  converted  into 
a  light  substance  in  every  respect  resembling  pumice." 
But  of  pumice  in  connection  with  the  pitchstones  of  Eigg, 
more  anon. 

Leaving  our  boat  to  return  to  the  Betsey  at  John 
Stewart's  leisure,  and  taking  with  us  his  companion,  to 
assist  us  in  carrying  such  specimens  as  we  might  procure, 
we  passed  westwards  for  a  few  hundred  yards  under  the 
crags,  and  came  abreast  of  a  dark  angular  opening  at  the 
base  of  the  precipice,  scarce  two  feet  in  height,  and  in  front 
of  which  there  lies  a  little  sluggish,  ankle-deep  pool,  half 
mud,  half  water,  and  matted  over  with  grass  and  rushes. 
Along  the  mural  face  of  the  rock  of  earthy  amygdaloid 
there  runs  a  nearly  vertical  line,  which  in  one  of  the  strati- 
fied rocks  one  might  perhaps  term  the  line  of  a  fault,  but 
which  in  a  trap  rock  may  merely  indicate  where  two  semi- 
molten  masses  had  pressed  against  each  other  without 
uniting  — just  as  currents  of  cooling  lead,  poured  by  the 
plumber  from  the  opposite  end  of  a  groove,  sometimes  meet 
and  press  together,  so  as  to  make  a  close,  polished  joint, 
without  running  into  one  piece.  The  little  angular  opening 
forms  the  lower  termination  of  the  line,  which,  hollowing 
inwards,  recedes  near  the  bottom  into  a  shallow  cave, 
roughened  with  tufts  of  fern  and  bunches  of  long  silky 
grass,  here  and  there  enlivened  by  the  delicate  flowers  of 

4 


88  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

the  lesser  rock-geranium.  A  shower  of  drops  patters  from 
above  among  the  weeds  and  rushes  of  the  little  pool.  My 
friend  the  minister  stopped  short.  "  There,"  he  said, 
pointing  to  the  hollow,  "  you  will  find  such  a  bone  cave  as 
you  never  saw  before.  Within  that  opening  there  lie  the 
remains  of  an  entire  race,  palpably  destroyed,  as  geologists 
in  so  many  other  cases  are  content  merely  to  imagine,  by 
one  great  catastrophe.  That  is  the  famous  cave  of  Frances 
( Uamh  Fraingh),  in  which  the  whole  people  of  Eigg 
were  smoked  to  death  by  the  M'Leods." 

We  struck  a  light,  and,  worming  ourselves  through  the 
narrow  entrance,  gained  the  interior,  —  a  true  rock  gallery, 
vastly  more  roomy  and  lofty  than  one  could  have  antici- 
pated from  the  mean  vestibule  placed  in  front  of  it.  Its 
extreme  length  we  found  to  be  two  hundred  and  sixty  feet ; 
its  extreme  breadth  twenty-seven  feet ;  its  height,  where 
the  roof  rises  highest,  from  eighteen  to  twenty  feet.  The 
cave  seems  to  have  owed  its  origin  to  two  distinct  causes. 
The  trap-rocks  on  each  side  of  the  vertical  fault-like  crev- 
ice which  separates  them  are  greatly  decomposed,  as  if  by 
the  moisture  percolating  from  above ;  and  directly  in  the 
line  of  the  crevice  must  the  surf  have  charged,  wave  after 
wave,  for  ages  ere  the  last  upheaval  of  the  land.  When 
the  Dog-stone  at  Dunolly  existed  as  a  sea-stack,  skirted 
with  alga?,  the  breakers  on  this  shore  mnst  have  dashed 
every  tide  through  the  narrow  opening  of  the  cavern,  and 
scooped  out  by  handfuls  the  decomposing  trap  within.  The 
process  of  decomposition,  and  consequent  enlargement,  is 
still  going  on  inside,  but  there  is  no  longer  an  agent  to 
sweep  away  the  disintegrated  fragments.  Where  the  roof 
rises  highest,  the  floor  is  blocked  up  with  accumulations  of 
bulky  decaying  masses,  that  have  dropped  from  above ; 
and  it  is  covered  over  its  entire  area  by  a  stratum  of  earthy 
rubbish,  which  has  fallen  from  the  sides  and  ceiling  in  such 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.  39 

abundance,  that  it  covers  up  the  straw  beds  of  the  perished 
islanders,  which  still  exist  beneath  as  a  brown  mouldering 
felt,  to  the  depth  of  from  five  to  eight  inches.  Never  yet 
was  tragedy  enacted  on  a  gloomier  theatre.  An  uncer- 
tain twilight  glimmers  gray  at  the  entrance,  from  the  narrow 
vestibule  ;  but  all  within,  for  full  two  hundred  feet,  is  black 
as  with  Egyptian  darkness.  As  Ave  passed  onward  with 
our  one  feeble  light,  along  the  dark  mouldering  walls  and 
roof,  which  absorbed  every  straggling  ray  that  reached 
them,  and  over  the  dingy  floor,  ropy  and  damp,  the  place 
called  to  recollection  that  hall  in  Roman  story,  hung  and 
carpeted  with  black,  into  which  Domitian  once  thrust  his 
senate,  in  a  frolic,  to  read  their  own  names  on  the  coffin-lids 
placed  against  the  wall.  The  darkness  seemed  to  press 
upon  us  from  every  side,  as  if  it  were  a  dense  jetty  fluid, 
out  of  which  our  light  had  scooped  a  pailful  or  two,  and 
that  was  rushing  in  to  supply  the  vacuum ;  and  the  only 
objects  we  saw  distinctly  visible  were  each  other's  heads 
and  faces,  and  the  lighter  parts  of  our  dress. 

The  floor,  for  about  a  hundred  feet  inwards  from  the  nar- 
row vestibule,  resembles  that  of  a  charnel-house.  At  almost 
every  step  we  came  upon  heaps  of  human  bones  grouped 
together,  as  the  Psalmist  so  graphically  describes,  "  as 
when  one  cutteth  and  cleaveth  wood  upon  the  earth." 
They  are  of  a  brownish,  earthy  hue,  here  and  there  tinged 
with  green  ;  the  skulls,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  broken 
fragments,  have  disappeared ;  for  travellers  in  the  Hebrides 
have  of  late  years  been  numerous  and  curious ;  and  many 
a  museum,  —  that  at  Abbotsford  among  the  rest,  —  exhibits, 
in  a  grinning  skull,  its  memorial  of  the  Massacre  at  Eigg. 
We  find,  too,  further  marks  of  visitors  in  the  single  bones 
separated  from  the  heaps  and  scattered  over  the  area  ;  but 
enough  still  remains  to  show,  in  the  general  disposition  of 
the  remains,  that  the  hapless  islanders  died  under  the  walls 


40  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

in  families,  each  little  group  separated  by  a  few  feet  from 
the  others.  Here  and  there  the  remains  of  a  detached 
skeleton  may  be  seen,  as  if  some  robust  islander,  restless  in 
his  agony,  had  stalked  out  into  the  middle  space  ere  he 
fell ;  but  the  social  arrangement  is  the  general  one.  And 
beneath  every  heap  we  find,  at  the  depth,  as  has  been  said, 
of  a  few  inches,  the  remains  of  the  straw-bed  upon  which 
the  family  had  lain,  largely  mixed  with  the  smaller  bones 
of  the  human  frame,  ribs  and  vertebrae,  and  hand  and  feet 
bones ;  occasionally,  too,  with  fragments  of  unglazed  pot- 
tery, and  various  other  implements  of  a  rude  housewifery. 
The  minister  found  for  me,  under  one  family  heap,  the 
pieces  of  a  half-burned,  unglazed  earthen  jar,  with  a  narrow 
mouth,  that,  like  the  sepulchral  urns  of  our  ancient  tumuli, 
had  been  moulded  by  the  hand,  without  the  assistance  of 
the  potter's  wheel ;  and  to  one  of  the  fragments  there 
stuck  a  minute  pellet  of  gray  hair.  From  under  another 
heap  he  disinterred  the  handle-stave  of  a  child's  wooden 
pon-inger  (bicker),  perforated  by  a  hole  still  bearing  the 
mark  of  the  cord  that  had  hung  it  to  the  wall ;  and  beside 
the  stave  lay  a  few  of  the  larger,  less  destructible  bones  of 
the  child,  with  what  for  a  time  puzzled  us  both  not  a  little. — 
one  of  the  grinders  of  a  horse.  Certain  it  was,  no  horse 
could  have  got  there  to  have  dropped  a  tooth, —  a  foal  of  a 
week  old  could  not  have  pressed  itself  through  the  open- 
ing ;  and  how  the  single  grinder,  evidently  no  recent  intro- 
duction into  the  cave,  could  have  got  mixed  up  in  the  straw 
with  the  human  bones,  seemed  an  enigma  somewhat  of  the 

*  O 

class  to  which  the  reel  in  the  bottle  belongs.  I  found  in 
Edinburgh  an  unexpected  commentator  on  the  mystery,  in 
the  person  of  my  little  boy,  —  an  experimental  philosopher 
in  his  second  year.  I  had  spread  out  on  the  floor  the  curi- 
osities of  Eigg,  —  among  the  rest,  the  relics  of  the  cave, 
including  the  pieces  of  earthern  jar,  and  the  fragment  of 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.  41 

the  porringer ;  but  the  horse's  tooth  seemed  to  be  the  only 
real  curiosity  among  them  in  the  eyes  of  little  Bill.  Pie 
laid  instant  hold  of  it ;  and,  appropriating  it  as  a  toy,  con- 
tinued playing  with  it  till  he  fell  asleep.  I  have  now  little 
doubt  that  it  was  first  brought  into  the  cave  by  the  poor 
child  amid  whose  mouldei'ing  remains  Mr.  Swanson  found 
it.  The  little  pellet  of  gray  hair  spoke  of  feeble  old  age 
involved  in  this  wholesale  massacre  with  the  vigorous  man- 
hood of  the  island ;  and  here  was  a  story  of  unsuspecting 
infancy  amusing  itself  on  the  eve  of  destruction  with  its 
toys.  Alas,  for  man !  "  Should  not  I  spare  Nineveh,  that 
great  city,"  said  God  to  the  angry  prophet,  "  wherein  are 
more  than  six  score  thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern 
between  their  right  hand  and  their  left  ?  "  God's  image 
must  have  been  sadly  defaced  in  the  murderers  of  the  poor 
inoffensive  children  of  Eigg,  ere  they  could  have  heard 
their  feeble  wailings,  raised,  no  doubt,  when  the  stifling 
atmosphere  within  began  first  to  thicken,  and  yet  ruthlessly 
persist  in  their  work  of  indiscriminate  destruction. 

Various  curious  things  have  from  time  to  time  been 
picked  up  from  under  the  bones.  An  islander  found  among 
them,  shortly  before  our  visit,  a  sewing  needle  of  copper, 
little  more  than  an  inch  in  length  ;  fragments  of  Eigg  shoes, 
of  the  kind  still  made  in  the  island,  are  of  comparatively 
common  occurrence;  and  Mr.  James  Wilson  relates,  in 
the  singularly  graphic  and  powerful  description  of  Uamh 
Fraingh,  which  occurs  in  his  "  Voyage  round  the  Coasts  of 
Scotland"  (1841),  that  a  sailor,  when  he  was  there,  disin- 
terred, by  turning  up  a  flat  stone,  a  "  buck-tooth "  and  a 
piece  of  money,  —  the  latter  a  rusty  copper  coin,  apparently 
of  the  times  of  Mary  of  Scotland.  I  also  found  a  few 
teeth ;  they  were  sticking  fast  in  a  fragment  of  jaw ;  and, 
taking  it  for  granted,  as  I  suppose  I  may,  that  the  dentology 
of  the  murderous  M'Leods  outside  the  cave  must  have  very 

4* 


42  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY;     OR, 

much  resembled  that  of  the  murdered  M'Donalds  within, 
very  harmless  looking  teeth  they  were  for  being  those  of  an 
animal  so  maliciously  mischievous  as  man.  I  have  found  in 
the  Old  Red  Sandstone  the  strong-based  tusks  of  the  semi- 
reptile  Holoptychius  ;  I  have  chiselled  out  of  the  limestone 
of  the  Coai  Measures  the  sharp,  dagger-like  incisors  of  the 
Megalichthys  ;  I  have  picked  up  in  the  Lias  and  Oolite  the 
cruel  spikes  of  the  Crocodile  and  the  Ichthyosaurus;  I  have 
seen  the  trenchant,  saw-edged  teeth  of  gigantic  Cestracions 
and  Squalidae  that  had  been  disinterred  from  the  Chalk 
and  the  London  Clay ;  and  I  have  felt,  as  I  examined  them, 
that  there  could  be  no  possibility  of  mistake  regarding  the 
nature  of  the  creatures  to  which  they  had  belonged ;  — 
they  were  teeth  made  for  hacking,  tearing,  mangling,  —  for 
amputating  limbs  at  a  bite,  and  laying  open  bulky  bodies 
with  a  crunch ;  but  I  could  find  no  such  evidence  in  the 
human  jaw,  with  its  three  inoffensive  looking  grinders,  that 
the  animal  it  had  belonged  to, — far  more  ruthless  and 
cruel  than  reptile-fish,  crocodiles,  or  sharks,  —  was  of  such 
a  nature  that  it  could  destroy  creatures  of  even  its  own 
kind  by  hundreds  at  a  time,  when  not  in  the  least  incited 
by  hunger,  and  with  no  ultimate  intention  of  eating  them. 
Man  must  surely  have  become  an  immensely  worse  animal 
than  his  teeth  show  him  to  have  been  designed  for ;  his 
teeth  give  no  real  evidence  regarding  his  real  character. 
"Who,  for  instance,  could  gather  from  the  dentology  of  the 
M'Leods  the  passage  in  their  history  to  which  the  cave  of 
Frances  bears  evidence  ? 

"We  quitted  the  cave,  with  its  stagnant  damp  atmosphere 
and  its  mouldy  unwholesome  smells,  to  breathe  the  fresh 
sea-air  on  the  beach  without.  Its  story,  as  recorded  by 
Sir  Walter  in  his  "  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,"  and  by  Mr. 
"Wilson,  in  his  "Voyage,"  must  be  familiar  to  the  reader; 
and  I  learned  from  my  friend,  versant  in  all  the  various 


A   SUMMER    EAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  -13 

island  traditions  regarding  it,  that  the  less  I  inquired  into 
its  history  on  the  spot,  the  more  was  I  likely  to  feel 
satisfied  that  I  knew  something  about  it.  There  seem 
to  have  been  no  chroniclers,  in  this  part  of  the  Hebrides,  in 
the  rude  age  of  the  unglazed  pipkin  and  the  copper  needle ; 
and  many  years  seem  to  have  elapsed  ere  the  story  of  their 
hapless  possessors  was  committed  to  writing;  and  so  we 
find  it  existing  in  various  and  somewhat  conflicting  edi- 
tions. "  Some  hundred  years  ago,"  says  Mr.  Wilson, 
"  a  few  of  the  M'Leods  landed  in  Eigg  from  Skye,  where, 
having  greatly  misconducted  themselves,  the  Eiggites 
strapped  them  to  their  own  boats,  which  they  sent  adrift 
into  the  ocean.  They  were,  however,  rescued  by  some 
clansmen ;  and,  soon  after,  a  strong  body  of  the  M'Leods 
set  sail  from  Skye,  to  revenge  themselves  on  Eigg.  The 
natives  of  the  latter  island  feeling  they  were  not  of  suffi- 
cient force  to  offer  resistance,  went  and  hid  themselves 
(men,  women,  and  children)  in  this  secret  care,  which  is 
narrow,  but  of  great  subterranean  length,  with  an  exceed- 
ingly small  entrance.  It  opens  from  the  broken  face  of  a 
steep  bank  along  the  shore ;  and,  as  the  whole  coast  is 
cavernous,  their  particular  retreat  would  have  been  sought 
for  in  vain  by  strangers.  So  the  Skye-men,  finding  the 
island  uninhabited,  presumed  the  natives  had  fled,  and 
satisfied  their  revengeful  feelings  by  ransacking  and  pillaging 
the  empty  houses.  Probably  the  movables  were  of  no 
great  value.  They  then  took  their  departure  and  left  the 
island,  when  the  sight  of  a  solitary  human  being  among 
the  cliffs  awakened  their  suspicion,  and  induced  them 
to  return.  Unfortunately  a  slight  sprinkling  of  snow  had 
fallen,  and  the  footsteps  of  an  individual  were  traced  to 
the  mouth  of  the  cave.  Not  having  been  there  ourselves 
at  the  period  alluded  to,  we  cannot  speak  with  certainty 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  parley  which  ensued,  or  the  terms 


44         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  |  OR, 

offered  by  either  party ;  but  we  know  that  those  were  not 
the  days  of  protocols.  The  ultimatum  was  unsatisfactory 
to  the  Skye-men,  who  immediately  proceeded  to  '  adjust 
the  preliminaries'  in  their  own  way,  which  adjustment 
consisted  in  carrying  a  vast  collection  of  heather,  ferns, 
and  other  combustibles,  and  making  a  huge  fire  just  in 
the  very  entrance  of  the  Uamh  Fraingh,  which  they 
kept  up  for  a  length  of  time ;  and  thus,  by  '  one  fell  smoke,' 
they  smothered  the  entire  population  of  the  island." 

Such  is  Mr.  Wilson's  version  of  the  story,  which,  in  all 
its  leading  circumstances,  agrees  with  that  of  Sir  Walter. 

o  *      o 

According,  however,  to  at  least  one  of  the  Eigg  versions, 
it  was  the  M'Leod  himself  who  had  landed  on  the  island, 
driven  there  by  a  storm.  The  islanders,  at  feud  with  the 
M'Leod's  at  the  time,  inhospitably  rose  upon  him,  as  he 
bivouacked  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Laig;  and  in  a 
fray,  in  which  his  party  had  the  worse,  his  back  was 
broken,  and  he  was  forced  off  half  dead  to  sea.  Several 
months  after,  on  his  partial  recovery,  he  returned,  crook- 
backed  and  infirm,  to  wreak  his  vengeance  on  the  inhab- 
itants, all  of  whom,  warned  of  his  coming  by  the  array 
of  his  galleys  in  the  offing,  hid  themselves  in  the  cave, 
in  which,  however,  they  were  ultimately  betrayed  —  as 
narrated  by  Sir  Walter  and  Mr.  Wilson — by  the  track 
of  some  footpaths  in  a  sprinkling  of  snow;  and  the 
implacable  chieftain,  giving  orders  on  the  discovery,  to 
unroof  the  houses  in  the  neighborhood,  raised  high  a 
pile  of  rafters  against  the  opening,  and  set  it  on  fire. 
And  there  he  stood  in  front  of  the  blaze,  hump-backed  and 
glim,  till  the  wild  hollow  ciy  from  the  rock  within  had 
sunk  into  silence,  and  there  lived  not  a  single  islander 
of  Eigg.  man,  woman,  or  child.  The  fact  that  their 
remains  should  have  been  left  to  moulder  in  the  cave  is 
proof  enough,  of  itself,  that  none  survived  to  bury  the 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  45 

dead.  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  from  the  appearance  of 
the  place,  that  smoke  could  scarcely  have  been  the  real 
agent  of  destruction  ;  then,  as  now,  it  would  have  taken 
a  great  deal  of  pure  smoke  to  smother  a  Highlander.  It 
may  be  perhaps  deemed  more  probable,  that  the  huge  fire 
of  rafter  and  roof-tree  piled  close  against  the  opening,  and 
rising  high  over  it,  would  draw  out  the  oxygen  within 
as  its  proper  food,  till  at  length  all  would  be  exhausted ; 
and  life  would  go  out  for  want  of  it,  like  the  flame  of  a 
candle  under  an  upturned  jar.  Sir  Walter  refers  the  date 
of  the  event  to  some  time  "  about  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century ; "  and  the  coin  of  Queen  Mary,  men- 
tioned by  Mr.  Wilson,  points  at  a  period  at  least  not  much 
earlier ;  but  the  exact  time  of  its  occurrence  is  so  uncer- 
tain, that  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  of  the  Hebrides,  in 
lately  showing  his  people  what  a  very  bad  thing  Protest- 
antism is,  instanced,  as  a  specimen  of  its  average  morality, 
the  affair  of  the  cave.  The  Protestant  M'Leods  of  Skye, 
he  said,  full  of  hatred  in  their  hearts,  had  murdered, 
wholesale,  their  wretched  brethren,  the  Protestant  M'Don- 
alds  of  Eigg,  and  sent  them  oif  to  perdition  before  their 
time. 

Quitting  the  beach,  we  ascended  the  breezy  hill-side  on 
our  way  to  the  Scuir,  —  an  object  so  often  and  so  well 
described,  that  it  might  be  perhaps  prudent,  instead  of 
attempting  one  description  more,  to  present  the  reader 
with  some  of  the  already  existing  ones.  "  The  Scuir  of 
Eigg,"  says  Professor  Jamieson,  in  his  'Mineralogy  of 
the  Western  Islands,'  "  is  perfectly  mural,  and  extends  for 
upwards  of  a  mile  and  a  half,  and  rises  to  a  height  of 
several  hundred  feet.  It  is  entirely  columnar,  and  the 
columns  rise  in  successive  ranges,  until  they  reach  the 
summit,  where,  from  their  great  height,  they  appear,  when 
viewed  from  below,  diminutive.  Staffa  is  an  object  of  the 


46  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

greatest  beauty  and  regularity  ;  the  pillars  are  as  distinct  as 
if  they  had  been  reared  by  the  hand  of  art ;  but  it  has  not 
the  extent  or  sublimity  of  the  Scuir  of  Eigg.  The  one 
may  be  compared  with  the  greatest  exertions  of  human 
power;  the  other  is  characteristic  of  the  wildest  and  most 
inimitable  works  of  nature."  "  The  height  of  this  extraor- 
dinary object  is  considerable,"  says  M'Culloch,  dashing  off 
his  sketch  with  a  still  bolder  hand ;  "  yet  its  powerful 
effect  arises  rather  from  its  peculiar  form,  and  the  com- 
manding elevation  which  it  occupies,  than  from  its  positive 
altitude.  Viewed  in  one  direction,  it  presents  a  long 
irregular  wall,  crowning  the  summit  of  the  highest  hill, 
while  in  the  other  it  resembles  a  huge  tower.  Thus  it 
forms  no  natural  combination  of  outline  with  the  surround- 
ing land,  and  hence  acquires  that  independence  in  the 
general  landscape  which  increases  its  apparent  magnitude, 
and  produces  that  imposing  effect  which  it  displays.  From 
the  peculiar  position  of  the  Scuir,  it  must  also  inevitably 
be  viewed  from  a  low  station.  Hence  it  everywhere 
towers  high  above  the  spectator  ;  while,  like  other  objects 
on  the  mountain  outline,  its  apparent  dimensions  are  mag- 
nified, and  its  dark  mass  defined  on  the  sky,  so  as  to 
produce  all  the  additional  effects  arising  from  strong 
oppositions  of  light  and  shadow.  The  height  of  this  rock 
is  sufficient  in  this  stormy  country  frequently  to  arrest  the 
passage  of  the  clouds,  so  as  to  be  further  productive  of  the 
most  brilliant  effects  in  landscape.  Often  they  may  be 
seen  hovering  on  its  summit,  and  adding  ideal  dimensions 
to  the  lofty  face,  or,  when  it  is  viewed  on  the  extremity, 
conveying  the  impression  of  a  tower,  the  height  of  which 
is  such  as  to  lie  in  the  regions  of  the  clouds.  Occasionally 
they  sweep  along  the  base,  leaving  its  huge  and  black  mass 
involved  in  additional  gloom,  and  resembling  the  castle  of 
some  Arabian  enchanter,  built  on  the  clouds,  and  suspended 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.  47 

in  air."  It  might  be  perhaps  deemed  somewhat  invidious 
to  deal  with  pictures  such  as  these  in  the  style  tho  connois- 
seur in  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield"  dealt  with  the  old  paint- 
ing, when,  seizing  a  brush,  he  daubed  it  over  with  brown 
varnish,  and  then  asked  the  spectators  whether  he  had  not 
greatly  improved  the  tone  of  the  coloring.  And  yet  it  is 
just  possible,  that  in  the  case  of  at  least  M'Culloch's  pic- 
ture, the  brown  varnish  might  do  no  manner  of  harm.  But 
a  homelier  sketch,  traced  out  on  almost  the  same  leading 
lines,  with  just  a  little  less  of  the  aerial  in  it,  may  have 
nearly  the  same  subduing  effect;  I  have,  besides,  a  few 
curious  touches  to  lay  in,  which  seem  hitherto  to  have 
escaped  observation  and  the  pencil ;  and  in  these  several 
circumstances  must  lie  my  apology  for  adding  one  sketch 
more  to  the  sketches  existing  already. 

The  Scuir  of  Eigg,  then,  is  a  veritable  Giant's  Causeway, 
like  that  on  the  coast  of  Antrim,  taken  and  magnified 
rather  more  than  twenty  times  in  height,  and  some  five  or 
six  times  in  breadth,  and  then  placed  on  the  ridge  of  a  hill 
nearly  nine  hundred  feet  high.  Viewed  sideways,  it  as- 
sumes, as  described  by  M'Culloch,  the  form  of  a  perpendic- 
ular but  ruinous  rampart,  much  gapped  above,  that  runs 
for  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter  along  the  top  of  a  lofty 
sloping  talus.  Viewed  endways,  it  resembles  a  tall  massy 
tower,  —  such  a  tower  as  my  friend,  Mr.  D.  O.  Hill,  would 
delight  to  draw,  and  give  delight  by  drawing,  —  a,  tower 
three  hundred  feet  in  breadth  by  four  hundred  and  seventy 
feet  in  height,  perched  on  the  apex  of  a  pyramid,  like  a 
statue  on  a  pedestal.  This  strange  causeway  is  columnar 
from  end  to  end ;  but  the  columns,  from  their  great  alti- 
tude and  deficient  breadth,  seem  mere  rodded  shafts  in  the 
Gothic  style;  they  rather  resemble  bundles  of  rods  than 
well-proportioned  pillars.  Few  of  them  exceed  eighteen 
inches  in  diameter,  and  many  of  them  fall  short  of  half  a 


48  THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY. 

foot ;  but,  though  lost  in  the  general  mass  of  the  Scuir  as 
independent  columns,  when  we  view  it  at  an  angle  suffi- 
ciently large  to  take  in  its  entire  bulk,  they  yet  impart  to  it 
that  graceful  linear  effect  which  we  see  brought  out  in 
tasteful  pencil  sketches  and  good  line  engravings.  We 
approached  it  this  day  from  the  shore  in  the  direction  in 
which  the  eminence  it  stands  upon  assumes  the  pyramidal 
form,  and  itself  the  tower-like  outline.  The  acclivity  is 
barren  and  stony,  —  a  true  desert  foreground,  like  those  of 
Thebes  and  Palmyra ;  and  the  huge  square  shadow  of  the 
tower  stretched  dark  and  cold  athwart  it.  The  sun  shone 
out  clearly.  One  half  the  immense  bulk  before  us,  with  its 
delicate  veitical  lining,  lay  from  top  to  bottom  in  deep 
shade,  massive  and  gray  ;  one  half  presented  its  many-sided 
columns  to  the  light,  here  and  there  gleaming  with  tints  of 
extreme  brightness,  where  the  pitchstones  presented  their 
glassy  planes  to  the  sun  ;  its  general  outline,  whether  pen- 
cilled by  the  lighter  or  darker  tints,  stood  out  sharp  and 
clear ;  and  a  stratum  of  white  fleecy  clouds  floated  slowly 
amid  the  delicious  blue  behind  it.  But  the  minuter  details 
I  must  reserve  for  my  next  chapter.  One  fact,  however, 
anticipated  just  a  little  out  of  its  order,  may  heighten  the 
interest  of  the  reader.  There  are  massive  buildings, — 
bridges  of  noble  span,  and  harbors  that  abut  far  into  the 
waves,  — founded  on  wooden  piles;  and  this  hugest  of  hill- 
forts  we  find  founded  on  wooden  piles  also.  It  is  built  on 
what  a  Scotch  architect  would  perhaps  term  a  pile-brander 
of  the  Pinites  Eiggensis,  an  ancient  tree  of  the  Oolite. 
The  gigantic  Scuir  of  Eigg  rests  on  the  remains  of  a 
prostrate  forest. 


CHAPTER    III. 

Structure  of  the  Scuir—  A  stray  Column  — The  Piazza  —  A  buried  Pine 
Forest  the  Foundation  of  the  Scuir  — Geological  Poachers  in  a  Fossil  Preserve 
—  Pinites  Eiggensis  —  Its  Description  — Witham's  Experiments  on  Fossil  Pine 
of  Eigg  — Rings  of  the  Pine  —  Ascent  of  the  Scuir — Appearance  of  the  Top  — 
White  Pitchstone— Mr.  Greig's  Discovery  of  Pumice  — A  Sunset  Scene  — The 
Manse  and  the  Yacht — The  Minister's  Story  —  A  Cottage  Repast  —  American 
Timber  drifted  to  the  Hebrides— Agency  of  the  Gulf  Stream  — The  Minister's 
Steep. 

As  we  climbed  the  hill-side,  and  the  Shinar-like  tower 
before  us  rose  higher  over  the  horizon  at  each  step  we  took, 
till  it  seemed  pointing  at  the  middle  sky,  we  could  mark 
peculiarities  in  its  structure  which  escape  notice  in  the  dis- 
tance. We  found  it  composed  of  various  beds,  each  of 
which  would  make  a  Giant's  Causeway  entire,  piled  over 
each  other  like  stories  in  a  building,  and  divided  into 
columns,  vertical,  or  nearly  so,  in  every  instance  except  in 
one  bed  near  the  base,  in  which  the  pillars  incline  to  a  side, 
as  if  losing  footing  under  the  superincumbent  weight.  In- 
numerable polygonal  fragments, —  single  stones  of  the  build- 
ing,—  lie  scattered  over  the  slope,  composed,  like  almost  all 
the  rest  of  the  Scuir,  of  a  peculiar  and  very  beautiful  stone, 
unlike  any  other  in  Scotland — a  dark  pitchstone-porphyry, 
which,  inclosing  crystals  of  glassy  feldspar,  resembles  in  the 
hand-specimen,  a  mass  of  black  sealing-wax,  with  numerous 
pieces  of  white  bugle  stuck  into  it.  Some  of  the  detached 
polygons  are  of  considerable  size ;  few  of  them  larger  and 
bulkier,  however,  than  a  piece  of  column  of  this  characteristic 
porphyry,  about  ten  feet  in  length  by  two  feet  in  diameter, 
which  lies  a  full  mile  away  from  any  of  the  others,  in  the 


50  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

line  of  the  old  burying-ground,  and  distant  fi-orn  it  only  a 
few  hundred  yards.  It  seems  to  have  been  carried  there 
by  man  :  we  find  its  bearing  from  the  Scuir  lying  nearly  at 
right  angles  with  the  direction  of  the  drift-boulders  of  the 
western  coast,  which  are,  besides,  of  rare  occurrence  in  the 
Hebrides  ;  nor  has  it  a  single  neighbor ;  and  it  seems  not 
improbable,  as  a  tradition  of  the  island  testifies,  that  it  was 
removed  thus  far  for  the  purpose  of  marking  some  place  of 
sepulture,  and  that  the  catastrophe  of  the  cave  arrested  its 
progress  after  by  far  the  longer  and  rougher  portion  of  the 
way  had  been  passed.  The  dry  arm-bones  of  the  charnel- 
house  in  the  rock  may  have  been  tugging  around  it  .when 
the  galleys  of  the  M'Leod  hove  in  sight.  The  traditional 
history  of  Eigg,  said  my  friend  the  minister,  compared  with 
that  of  some  of  the  neighboring  islands,  presents  a  decapi- 
tated aspect:  the  M'Leods  cut  it  off" by  the  neck.  Most  of 
the  present  inhabitants  can  tell  which  of  their  ancestors, 
grandfather,  or  great-grandfather,  or  great-great-grand- 
father, first  settled  in  the  place,  and  where  they  came 
from  ;  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  vague  legends  about 
St.  Donan  and  his  grave,  which  were  preserved  apparently 
among  the  people  of  the  other  Small  Isles,  the  island  has  no 
early  traditional  history. 

We  had  now  reached  the  Scuir.  There  occur,  interca- 
lated with  the  columnar  beds,  a  few  bands  of  a  buff-colored 
non-columnar  trap,  described  by  M'Culloch  as  of  a  texture 
intermediate  between  a  greenstone  and  a  basalt,  and  which, 
while  the  pitchstone  around  it  seems  nearly  indestructible, 
has  weathered  so  freely  as  to  form  horizontal  grooves  along 
the  face  of  the  rock,  from  two  to  five  yards  in  depth.  One 
of  these  runs  for  several  hundred  feet  along  the  base  of  the 
Scuir,  just  at  the  top  of  the  talus,  and  greatly  resembles  a 
piazza,  lacking  the  outer  pillars.  It  is  from  ten  to  twelve 
feet  in  height,  by  from  fifteen  to  twenty  in  depth ;  the 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  51 

columns  of  the  pitchstone-bed  immediately  above  it  seem 
perilously  hanging  in  mid  air ;  and  along  their  sides  there 
trickles,  in  even  the  driest  summer  weather, —  for  the  Scuir 
is  a  condenser  on  an  immense  scale  —  minute  runnels  of 
water,  that  patter  ceaselessly  in  front  of  the  long  deep  hol- 
low, like  rain  from  the  eaves  of  a  cottage  during  a  thunder 
shower.  Inside,  however,  all  is  dry,  and  the  floor  is  covered 
to  the  depth  of  several  inches  with  the  dung  of  sheep  and 
cattle,  that  find,  in  this  singular  mountain  piazza,  a  place  of 
shelter.  We  had  brought  a  pickaxe  with  us ;  and  the  dry 
and  dusty  floor,  composed  mainly  of  a  gritty  conglomerate, 
formed  the  scene  of  our  labors.  It  is  richly  fossiliferous, 
though  the  organisms  have  no  specific  variety ;  and  never, 
certainly,  have  I  found  the  remains  of  former  creations  in  a 
scene  in  which  they  more  powerfully  addressed  themselves 
to  the  imagination.  A  stratum  of  peat-moss,  mixed  with 
fresh-water  shells,  and  resting  on  a  layer  of  vegetable  mould, 
from  which  the  stumps  and  roots  of  trees  still  protruded, 
was  once  found  in  Italy,  buried  beneath  an  ancient  tesse- 
lated  pavement ;  and  the  whole  gave  curious  evidence  of  a 
kind  fitted  to  picture  to  the  imagination  a  back-ground  vista 
of  antiquity,  all  the  more  remotely  ancient  in  aspect  from 
the  venerable  age  of  the  object  in  front.  Dry  ground  cov- 
ered by  wood,  a  lake,  a  morass,  and  then  dry  ground  again, 
had  all  taken  precedence,  on  the  site  of  the  tesselated  pave- 
ment, in  this  instance,  of  an  old  Roman  villa.  But  what 
was  antiquity  in  connection  with  a  Roman  villa,  to  antiquity 
in  connection  with  the  Scuir  of  Eigsr  ?  Under  the  old 

oo 

foundations  of  this  huge  wall  we  find  the  remains  of  a  pine 
forest,  that,  long  ere  a  single  bed  of  the  porphyry  had  burst 
from  beneath,  had  sprung  up  and  decayed  on  lull  and  be- 
side stream  in  some  nameless  land, —  had  then  been  swept 
to  the  sea, —  had  been  entombed  deep  at  the  bottom  in  a 
grit  of  Oolite,  —  had  been  heaved  up  to  the  surface,  and  high 


52         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

over  it,  by  volcanic  agencies  working  from  beneath, —  and 
had  finally  been  built  upon,  as  moles  are  built  upon  piles, 
by  the  architect  that  had  laid  down  the  masonry  of  the 
gigantic  Scuiv,  in  one  fiery  layer  after  another.  The  moun- 
tain wall  of  Eigg,  with  its  dizzy  elevation  of  four  hundred 
and  seventy  feet,  is  a  wall  founded  on  piles  of  pine  laid 
crossways ;  and,  strange  as  the  fact  may  seem,  one  has  but 
to  dig  into  the  floor  of  this  deep-hewn  piazza,  to  be  con- 
vinced that  at  least  it  is  a  fact. 

Just  at  this  interesting  stage,  however,  our  explorations 
bade  fair  to  be  interrupted.  Our  man  who  carried  the 
pickaxe  had  lingered  behind  us  for  a  few  hundred  yards,  in 
earnest  conversation  with  an  islander ;  and  he  now  came 
up,  breathless  and  in  hot  haste,  to  say  that  the  islander,  a 
Roman  Catholic  tacksman  in  the  neighborhood,  had  pe- 
remptorily warned  him  that  the  Scuir  of  Eigg  was  the  prop- 
erty of  Dr.  M'Pherson  of  Aberdeen,  not  ours,  and  that  the 
Doctor  would  be  very  angry  at  any  man  who  meddled 
with  it.  "  That  message,"  said  my  friend,  laughing,  but 
looking  just  a  little  sad  through  the  laugh,  "would 
scarce  have  been  sent  us  when  I  was  minister  of  the 
Establishment  here ;  but  it  seems  allowable  in  the  case  of  a 
poor  Dissenter,  and  is  no  bad  specimen  of  the  thousand 
little  ways  in  which  the  Roman  Catholic  population  of  the 
island  try  to  annoy  me,  now  that  they  see  my  back  to  the 
wall."  I  was  tickled  with  the  idea  of  a  fossil  preserve, 
which  coupled  itself  in  my  mind,  through  a  trick  of  the 
associative  faculty,  with  the  idea  of  a  great  fossil  act  for  the 
British  empire,  framed  on  the  principles  of  the  game-laws ; 
and,  just  wondering  what  sort  of  disreputable  vagabonds 
geological  poachers  would  become  under  its  deteriorating 
influence,  I  laid  hold  of  the  pickaxe  and  broke  into  the 
stonefast  floor ;  and  thence  I  succeeded  in  abstracting, — 
feloniously,  I  dare  say,  though  the  crime  has  not  yet  got 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  53 

into  the  statute-book  —  some  six  or  "eight  pieces  of  the 
P mites  Eiggensis,  amounting  in  all  to  about  half  a  cubic 
foot  of  that  very  ancient  wood  —  value  unknown.  I  trust, 
should  the  case  come  to  a  serious  bearing,  the  members  of 
the  London  Geological  Society  will  generously  subscribe 
half-a-crown  a-piece  to  assist  me  in  feeing  counsel.  There 
arc  more  interests  than  mine  at  stake  in  the  affair.  If  I  be 
cast  and  committed, —  I,  who  have  poached  over  only  a  few 
miserable  districts  in  Scotland, —  pray,  what  will  become  of 
some  of  them, —  the  Lyells,  Bucklands,  Murchisons  and 
Sedgwicks, —  who  have  poached  over  whole  continents? 

"We  were  successful  in  procuring  several  good  specimens 
of  the  Eigg  pine,  at  a  depth,  in  the  conglomerate,  of  from 
eight  to  eighteen  inches.  Some  of  the  upper  pieces  we 
found  in  contact  with  the  decomposing  trap  out  of  which 
the  hollow  piazza  above  had  been  scooped  ;  but  the  greater 
number,  as  my  set  of  specimens  abundantly  testify,  lay  em- 
bedded in  the  original  Oolitic  grit  in  which  they  had  been 
locked  up,  in,  I  doubt  not,  their  present  fossil  state,  ere 
their  upheaval,  through  Plutonic  agency,  from  their  deep- 
sea  bottom.  The  annual  rings  of  the  wood,  which  are  quite 
as  small  as  in  a  slow-growing  Baltic  pine,  are  distinctly 
visible  in  all  the  better  pieces  I  this  day  transferred  to  my 
bag.  In  one  fragment  I  reckon  sixteen  rings  in  half  an 
inch,  and  fifteen  in  the  same  space  in  another.  The  trees  to 
which  they  belonged  seem  to  have  grown  on  some  exposed 
hill-side,  where,  in  the  course  of  half  a  century,  little  more 
than  from  two  or  three  inches  were  added  to  their  diameter. 
The  Pinites  Eiggensis,  or  Eigg  pine,  was  first  introduced 
to  the  notice  of  the  scientific  world  by  the  late  Mr.Witham, 
in  whose  interesting  work  on  "  The  Internal  Structure  of 
Fossil  Vegetables  "  the  reader  may  find  it  figured  and  de- 
scribed. The  specimen  in  which  he  studied  its  peculiarities 
"was  found,"  he  says,  "at  the  base  of  the  magnificent 

5* 


54  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY  ;    OR, 

mural  escarpment  named  the  Scuir  of  Eigg, —  not,  however, 
in  situ,  but  among  fragments  of  rocks  of  the  Oolitic  series." 
The  authors  of  the  "  Fossil  Flora,"  where  it  is  also  figured, 
describe  it  as  differing  very  considerably  in  structure 
from  any  of  the  coniferae  of  the  Coal  Measures.  "  Its  me- 
dullary rays,"  says  Messrs.  Lindley  and  Hutton,  "  appear  to 
be  more  numerous,  and  frequently  are  not  continued 
through  one  zone  of  wood  to  another,  but  more  generally 
terminate  at  the  concentric  circles.  It  abounds  also  in 
turpentine  vessels,  or  lacunae,  of  various  sizes,  the  sides  of 
which  are  distinctly  defined."  Viewed  through  the  micro- 
scope, in  transparent  slips,  longitudinal  and  transverse,  it 
presents,  within  the  space  of  a  few  lines,  objects  fitted  to 
fill  the  mind  with  wonder.  We  find  the  minutest  cells, 
glands,  fibres,  of  the  original  wood  preserved  uninjured. 
Tfiere  still  are  those  medullary  rays  entire  that  communi- 
cated between  the  pith  and  the  outside, —  there  still  the 
ring  of  thickened  cells  that  indicated  the  yearly  check 
which  the  growth  received  when  winter  came  on, —  there 
the  polygonal  reticulations  of  the  cross  section,  without  a 
single  broken  mesh, —  there,  too,  the  elongated  cells  in  the 
longitudinal  one,  each  filled  with  minute  glands  that  take 
the  form  of  double  circles, —  there  also,  of  larger  size  and 
less  regular  form,  the  lacuna?  in  which  the  turpentine  lay : 
every  nicely  organized  speck,  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  we 
find  in  as  perfect  a  state  of  keeping  in  the  incalculably 
ancient  pile-work  on  which  the  gigantic  Scuir  is  founded,  as 
in  the  living  pines  that  flourish  green  on  our  hill-sides.  A 
net-work,  compared  with  which  that  of  the  finest  lace  ever 
worn  by  the  fair  reader  would  seem  a  net-work  of  cable,  has 
preserved  entire,  for  untold  ages,  the  most  delicate  peculi- 
arities of  its  pattern.  There  is  not  a  mesh  broken,  nor  a 
circular  dot  away ! 

The  experiments  of  Mr.  Witham  on  the  Eigg  fossil,  fur- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     55 

nish  an  interesting  example  of  the  light  which  a  single,  ap- 
parently simple,  discovery  may  throw  on  whole  departments 
of  fact.  He  sliced  his  specimen  longitudinally  and  across, 
fastened  the  slices  on  glass,  ground  them  down  till  they  be- 
came semi-transparent,  and  then,  examining  them  under 
reflected  light  by  the  microscope,  marked  and  recorded 
the  specific  peculiarities  of  their  structure.  And  we  now 
know,  in  consequence,  that  the  ancient  Ejgg  pine,  to  which 
the  detached  fragment  picked  up  at  the  base  of  the  Scuir 
belonged, —  a  pine  alike  different  from  those  of  the  earlier 
carboniferous  period  and  those  which  exist  contemporary 
with  ourselves, —  was,  some  three  creations  ago,  an  exceed- 
ingly common  tree  in  the  country  now  called  Scotland, —  as 
much  so,  perhaps,  as  the  Scotch  fir  is  at  the  present  day. 
The  fossil  trees  found  in  such  abundance  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Helmsdale  that  they  are  burnt  for  lime,  — the  fossil 
wood  of  Eathie,  in  Cromartyshire,  and  that  of  Shandwick, 
in  Ross, —  all  belong  to  the  Pinites  Eiggensis.  It  seems 
to  have  been  a  straight  and  stately  tree,  in  most  instances, 
as  in  the  Eigg  specimens,  of  slow  growth.  One  of  the 
trunks  I  saw  near  Navidale  measured  two  feet  in  diameter, 
but  a  full  century  had  passed  ere  it  attained  to  a  bulk  so 
considerable ;  and  a  splendid  specimen  in  my  collection, 
from  the  same  locality,  which  measures  twenty-one  inches, 
exhibits  even  more  than  a  hundred  annual  rings.  In  one  of 
my  specimens,  and  one  only,  the  rings  are  of  great  breadth. 
They  differ  from  those  of  all  the  others  in  the  proportion  in 
which  I  have  seen  the  annual  rings  of  a  young,  vigorous  fir 
that  had  sprung  up  in  some  rich,  moist  hollow,  differ  from 
the  annual  rings  of  trees  of  the  same  species  that  had  grown 
in  the  shallow,  hard  soil  of  exposed  hill-sides.  And  this  one 
specimen  furnishes  curious  evidence  that  the  often-marked 
but  little  understood  law,  which  gives  us  our  better  and 
worse  seasons  in  alternate  groups,  various  in  number  and 


56         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

uncertain  in  their  time  of  recurrence,  obtained  as  early  as 
the  age  of  the  Oolite.  The  rings  follow  each  other  in 
groups  of  lesser  and  larger  breadth.  One  group  of  four 
rings  measures  an  inch  and  a  quarter  across,  while  an  adjoin- 
ing group  of  five  rings  measures  only  five-eighth  parts ;  and 
in  a  breadth  of  six  inches  there  occur  five  of  these  alternate 
groups.  For  some  four  or  five  years  together,  when  this 
pine  was  a  living  tree,  the  springs  were  late  and  cold,  and 
the  summers  cloudy  and  chill,  as  in  that  group  of  seasons 
which  intervened  between  1835  and  1841;  and  then,  for 
four  or  five  years,  more  springs  were  early  and  summers 
genial,  as  in  the  after  group  of  1842,  1843  and  1844.  An 
arrangement  in  nature, —  first  observed,  as  we  learn  from 
Bacon,  by  the  people  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  which  has 
since  formed  the  basis  of  meteoric  tables,  and  of  predictions 
and  elaborate  cycles  of  the  weather, —  bound  together  the 
twelvemonths  of  the  Oolitic  period  in  alternate  bundles  of 
better  and  worse :  vegetation  throve  vigorously  during  the 
summers  of  one  group,  and  languished,  in  those  of  another, 
in  a  state  of  partial  development. 

Sending  away  our  man  shipwards,  laden  with  a  bag  of 
fossil  wood,  we  ascended  by  a  steep  broken  ravine  to  the 
top  of  the  Scuir.  The  columns,  as  we  pass  on  towards  the 
west,  diminish  in  size,  and  assume  in  many  of  the  beds 
considerable  variety  of  direction  and  form.  In  one  bed 
they  belly  over  with  a  curve,  like  the  ribs  of  some  wrecked 
vessel  from  which  the  planking  has  been  torn  away ;  in  an- 
other they  project  in  a  straight  line,  like  muskets  planted 
slantways  on  the  ground  to  receive  a  charge  of  cavalry ;  in 
others  the  inclination  is  inwards,  like  that  of  ranges  of  stakes 
placed  in  front  of  a  sea-dyke,  to  break  the  violence  of  the 
waves ;  while  yet  in  others  they  present,  as  in  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  Scuir,  the  common  vertical  direction.  The 
ribbed  appearance  of  every  crag  and  cliff,  imparts  to  the 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     57 

scene  a  peculiar  character;  every  larger  mass  of  light  and 
shadow  is  corded  with  minute  stripes;  and  the  feeling 
experienced  among  the  more  shattered  peaks,  and  in  the 
more  broken  recesses,  seems  near  akin  to  that  which  it  is 
the  tendency  of  some  magnificent  ruin  to  excite,  than  that 
which  awakens  amid  the  sublime  of  nature.  We  feel  as  if 
the  pillared  rocks  around  us  were  like  the  Cyclopean  Avails 
of  Southern  Italy,' — the  erections  of  some  old  gigantic 
race  passed  from  the  earth  forever.  The  feeling  must  have 
been  experienced  on  former  occasions,  amid  the  innumerable 
pillars  of  the  Scuir ;  for  we  find  M'Culloch,  in  his  descrip- 
tion, ingeniously  analyzing  it.  "  The  resemblance  to  archi- 
tecture here  is  much  increased,"  he  says,  "  by  the  columnar 
structure,  which  is  sufficiently  distinguishable,  even  from  a 
distance,  and  produces  a  strong  effect  of  artificial  regularity 
when  seen  near  at  hand.  To  this  vague  association  in  the 
mind  of  the  efforts  of  art  with  the  magnitude  of  nature,  is 
owing  much  of  that  sublimity  of  character  which  the  Scuir 
presents.  The  sense  of  power  is  a  fertile  source  of  the  sub- 
lime ;  and  as  the  appearance  of  power  exerted,  no  less  than 
that  of  simplicity,  is  necessary  to  confer  this  character  on 
architecture,  so  the  mind,  insensibly  transferring  the  opera- 
tions of  nature  to  the  efforts  of  art  where  they  approxi- 
mate in  character,  becomes  impressed  with  a  feeling  rarely 
excited  by  her  more  ordinary  forms,  where  these  are*  even 
more  stupendous." 

The  top  of  the  Scuir,  more  especially  towards  its  eastern 
termination,  resembles  that  of  some  vast  mole  not  yet 
levelled  over  by  the  workmen ;  the  pavement  has  not  yet 
been  laid  clown,  and  there  are  deep  gaps  in  the  masonry,  that 
run  transversely,  from  side  to  side,  still  to  fill  up.  Along 
one  of  these  ditch-like  gaps,  which  serves  to  insulate  the 
eastern  and  highest  portion  of  the  Scuir  from  all  its  other 
portions,  we  find  fragments  of  a  rude  wall  of  uncemented 


58         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

stones,  the  remains  of  an  ancient  hill-fort ;  which,  with  its 
natural  rampart  of  rock  on  three  of  its  four  sides,  more 
than  a  hundred  yards  in  sheer  descent,  and  with  its  deep 
ditch  and  rude  wall  on  the  fourth,  must  have  fonned  one 
of  the  most  inaccessible  in  the  kingdom.  The  masses  of 
pitchstone  a-top,  though  so  intensely  black  within,  are 
weathered  on  the  surface  into  almost  a  pure  white ;  and  we 
found  lying  detached  among  them,  fragments  of  common 
amygdaloid  and  basalt,  and  minute  slaty  pieces  of  chalced- 
ony that  had  formed  apparently  in  fissures  of  the  trap. 
We  would  have  scrutinized  more  narrowly  at  the  time  had 
we  expected  to  find  anything  more  rare;  but  I  did  not 
know  until  fuh1  four  months  after,  that  aught  more  rare  was 
to  be  found.  Had  we  examined  somewhat  more  carefully, 
we  might  possibly  have  done  what  Mr.  Woronzow  Greig 
did  on  the  Scuir  about  eighteen  years  previous,  —  picked 
up  on  it  a  piece  of  bona  fide  Scotch  pumice.  This  gentle- 
man, well  known  through  his  exertions  in  statistical  science, 
and  for  his  love  of  science  in  general,  and  whose  tastes  and 
acquirements  are  not  unworthy  the  son  of  Mrs.  Somerville, 
has  kindly  informed  me  by  letter  regarding  his  curious  dis- 
covery. "  I  visited  the  island  of  Eigg,"  he  says,  "in  1825 
or  1826,  for  the  purpose  of  shooting,  and  remained  in  it 
several  days ;  and  as  there  was  a  great  scarcity  of  game,  I 
amused  myself  in  my  wanderings  by  looking  about  for  nat- 
ural curiosities.  I  knew  little  about  Geology  at  the  time, 
but,  collecting  whatever  struck  my  eye  as  uncommon,  I 
picked  up  from  the  sides  of  the  Scuir,  among  various  other 
things,  a  bit  of  fossil  wood,  and,  nearly  at  the  summit  of 
the  eminence,  a  piece  of  pumice  of  a  deep  brownish-black 
color,  and  very  porous,  the  pores  being  large  and  round, 
and  the  substance  which  divided  them  of  a  uniform  thick- 
ness. This  last  specimen  I  gave  to  Mr.  Lyell,  who  said  that 
it  could  not  originally  have  belonged  to  Eigg,  though  it 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  59 

might  possibly  have  been  washed  there  by  the  sea,  —  a  sug- 
gestion, however,  with  which  its  place  on  the  top  of  the 
Scuir  seems  ill  to  accord.  I  may  add,  that  I  have  since 
procured  a  larger  specimen  from  the  same  place."  This 
seems  a  curious  fact,  when  we  take  into  account  the  identity, 
in  their  mineral  components,  of  the  pumice  and  obsidian  of 
the  recent  volcanoes ;  and  that  pitchstone,  the  obsidian  of 
the  trap-rocks,  is  resolvable  into  a  pumice  by  the  art  of  the 
chemist.  If  pumice  was  to  be  found  anywhere  in  Scotland, 
we  might  a  priori  expect  to  find  it  in  connection  with  by 
far  the  largest  mass  of  pitchstone  in  the  kingdom.  It  is 
just  possible,  however,  that  Mr.  Greig's  two  specimens 
may  not  date  farther  back,  in  at  least  their  existing  state, 
than  the  days  of  the  hill-fort.  Powerful  fires  would  have 
been  required  to  render  the  exposed  summit  of  the  Scuir  at 
all  comfortable ;  there  is  a  deep  peat-moss  in  its  immediate 
neighborhood,  that  would  have  furnished  the  necessary 
fuel ;  the  wind  must  have  been  sufficiently  high  on  the 
summit  to  fan  the  embers  into  an  intense  white  heat ;  and 
if  it  was  heat  but  half  as  intense  as  that  which  was 
employed  in  fusing  into  one  mass  the  thick  vitrified  ram- 
parts of  Craig  Phadrig  and  Knock  Farril,  on  the  east  coast, 
it  could  scarce  have  failed  to  anticipate  the  experiment 
of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Knox,  of  Dublin,  by  converting  some  of 
the  numerous  pitchstone  fragments  that  lie  scattered 
about,  "  into  a  light  substance  in  every  respect  resembling 
pumice." 

It  was  now  evening,  and  rarely  have  I  witnessed  a  finer. 
The  sun  had  declined  half-way  adown  the  western  sky,  and 
for  many  yards  the  shadow  of  the  gigantic  Scuir  lay  dark 
beneath  us  along  the  descending  slope.  All  the  rest  of  the 
island,  spread  out  at  our  feet  as  in  a  map,  was  basking 
in  yellow  sunshine ;  and  with  its  one  dark  shadow  thrown 
from  its  one  mountain-elevated  wall  of  rock,  it  seemed  some 


60  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

immense  fantastical  dial,  with  its  gnomon  rising  tall  in  the 
midst.  Far  below,  perched  on  the  apex  of  the  shadow,  and 
half  lost  in  the  line  of  the  penumbra,  we  could  see  two 
indistinct  specks  of  black,  with  a  dim  halo  around  each,  — 
specks  that  elongated  as  we  arose,  and  contracted  as  we 
sat,  and  went  gliding  along  the  line  as  we  walked.  The 
shadows  of  two  gnats  disporting  on  the  edge  of  an  ordi- 
nary gnomon  would  have  seemed  vastly  more  important,  in 
proportion,  on  the  figured  plane  of  the  dial,  than  these,  our 
ghostly  representatives,  did  here.  The  sea,  spangled  in  the 
wake  of  the  sun  with  quick  glancing  light,  stretched  out  its 
blue  plain  around  us;  and  we  could  see  included  in  the 
wide  prospect,  on  the  one  hand,  at  once  the  hill-chains  of 
Morven  and  Kintail,  with  the  many  intervening  lochs  and 
bold  jutting  headlands  that  give  variety  to  the  mainland  ; 
and,  on  the  other,  the  variously  complexioned  Hebrides, 
from  the  Isle  of  Skye  to  Uist  and  Barra,  and  from  Uist  and 
Barra  to  Tiree  and  Mull.  The  contiguous  Small  Isles, 
Muck  and  Rum,  lay  moored  immediately  beside  us,  like 
vessels  of  the  same  convoy  that  in  some  secure  roadstead 
drop  anchor  within  hail  of  each  other.  I  could  willingly 
have  lingered  on  the  top  of  the  Scuir  until  after  sunset ; 
but  the  minister,  who,  ever  and  anon,  during  the  day,  had 
been  conning  over  some  notes  jotted  on  a  paper  of  wonder- 
fully scant  dimensions,  reminded  me  that  this  was  the  even- 
ing of  his  week-day  discourse,  and  that  we  were  more  than 
a  particularly  rough  mile  from  the  place  of  meeting,  and 
within  half  an  hour  of  the  time.  I  took  one  last  look  of 
the  scene  ere  we  commenced  our  descent.  There,  in  the 
middle  of  the  ample  parish  glebe,  that  looked  richer  and 
greener  in  the  light  of  the  declining  sun  than  at  any  former 
period  during  the  day,  —  rose  the  snug  parish  manse  ;  and 
yonder,  —  in  an  open  island  channel,  with  a  strip  of  dark 
rocks  fringing  the  land  within,  and  another  dark  strip 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     61 

fringing  the  barren  Eilean  Chaisteil  outside,  —  lay  the 
Betsey,  looking  wonderfully  diminutive,  but  evidently  a 
little  thing  of  high  spirit,  taut-masted,  with  a  smart  rake 
aft,  and  a  spruce  outrigger  astern,  and  flaunting  her  trian- 
gular flag  of  blue  in  the  sun.  I  pointed  first  to  the  manse, 
and  then  to  the  yacht.  The  minister  shook  his  head. 

"  '  Tis  a  time  of  strange  changes,"  he  said ;  "  I  thought 
to  have  lived  and  died  in  that  house,  and  found  a  quiet 
grave  in  the  burying-ground  yonder  beside  the  ruin ;  but 
my  path  Avas  a  clear  though  a  rugged  one ;  and  from  almost 
the  moment  that  it  opened  up  to  me,  I  saw  what  I  had  to 
expect.  It  has  been  said  that  I  might  have  lain  by  here  in 
this  out-of-the-way  corner,  and  suffered  the  Church  ques- 
tion to  run  its  course,  without  quitting  my  hold  of  the 
Establishment.  And  so  I  perhaps  might.  It  is  easy  secur- 
ing one's  own  safety,  in  even  the  worst  of  times,  if  one  look 
no  higher ;  and  I,  as  I  had  no  opportunity  of  mixing  in  the 
contest,  or  of  declaring  my  views  respecting  it,  might  be 
regarded  as  an  unpledged  man.  But  the  principles  of  the 
Evangelical  party  were  my  principles  ;  and  it  would  have 
been  consistent  with  neither  honor  nor  religion  to  have 
hung  back  in  the  day  of  battle,  and  suffered  the  men  with 
whom  in  heart  I  was  at  one  to  pay  the  whole  forfeit  of  our 
common  quarrel.  So  I  attended  the  Convocation,  and 
pledged  myself  to  stand  or  fall  with  my  brethren.  On  my 
return  I  called  my  people  together,  and  told  them  how  the 
case  stood,  and  that  in  May  next  I  bade  fair  to  be  a 
dependent  for  a  home  on  the  proprietor  of  Eigg.  And  so 
they  petitioned  the  proprietor  that  he  might  give  me  leave 
to  build  a  house  among  them,  —  exactly  the  same  sort  of 
favor  granted  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  the  island.  But 
month  after  month  passed,  and  they  got  no  reply  to  their 
petition ;  and  I  was  left  in  suspense,  not  knowing  whether  I 
was  to  have  a  home  among  them  or  no.  I  did  feel  the  case 

6 


(32  THE    CRUISE    OF    THE   BETSEY  ;     OR, 

a  somewhat  hard  one.  The  father  of  Dr.  M'Pherson  of 
Eigg  had  been,  like  myself,  a  humble  Scotch  minister ;  and 
the  Doctor,  however  indifferent  to  his  people's  wishes  in 
such  a  matter,  might  have  just  thought  that  a  man  in  his 
father's  station  in  life,  with  a  wife  and  family  dependent  on 
him,  was  placed  by  his  silence  in  cruel  circumstances  of  un- 
certainty. Ere  the  Disruption  took  place,  however,  I  came 
to  know  pretty  conclusively  what  I  had  to  expect.  The 
Doctor's  factor  came  to  Eigg,  and,  as  I  was  informed,  told 
the  Islanders  that  it  was  not  likely  the  Doctor  would  per- 
mit a  third  place  of  worship  on  the  Island :  the  Roman 
Catholics  had  one,  and  the  Establishment  had  a  kind  of  one, 
and  there  was  to  be  no  more.  The  factor,  an  active  mes- 
senger-at-arms,  useful  in  raising  rents  in  these  parts,  has 
always  been  understood  to  speak  the  mind  of  his  master ; 
but  the  congregation  took  heart  in  the  emergency,  and  sent 
off  a  second  petition  to  Dr.  M'Pherson,  a  week  or  so  pre- 
vious to  the  Disruption.  Ere  it  received  an  answer,  the 
Disruption  took  place ;  and,  laying  the  whole  circumstances 
before  my  brethren  in  Edinburgh,  who,  like  myself,  inter- 
preted the  silence  of  the  Doctor  into  a  refusal,  I  suggested 
to  them  the  scheme  of  the  Betsey,  as  the  only  scheme 
through  which  I  could  keep  tip  unbroken  my  connection 
with  my  people.  So  the  trial  is  now  over,  and  here  we  are, 
and  yonder  is  the  Betsey." 

We  descended  the  Scuir  together  for  the  place  of  meet- 
ing, and  entered,  by  the  way,  the  cottage  of  a  worthy 
islander,  much  attached  to  his  minister.  "We  are  both 
very  hungry,"  said  my  friend :  "  we  have  been  out  among 
the  rocks  since  breakfast-time,  and  are  wonderfully  disposed 
to  eat.  Do  not  put  yourself  about,  but  give  us  anything 
you  have  at  hand."  There  was  a  bowl  of  rich  milk  brought 
\is,  and  a  splendid  platter  of  mashed  potatoes,  and  we  dined 
like  princes.  I  observed,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  interior 


A   SUMMER  KAMBLE   AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.  63 

of  this  cottage,-  what  I  had  frequent  occasion  to  remark 
afterwards,  that  much  of  the  wood  used  in  building  in  the 
smaller  and  outer  islands  of  the  Hebrides  must  have  drifted 
across  the  Atlantic,  borne  eastwards  and  northwards  by 
the  great  Gulf-stream.  Many  of  the  beams  and  boards, 
sorely  drilled  by  the  Teredo  navalis,  are  of  American  tim- 
ber, that,  from  time  to  time,  has  been  cast  upon  the  shore, — 
a  portion  of  it,  apparently,  from  timber-laden  vessels  unfor- 
tunate in  their  voyage,  but  a  portion  of  it,  also,  with  root 
and  branch  still  attached,  bearing  mark  of  having  been 
swept  to  the  sea  by  transatlantic  rivers.  Nuts  and  seeds  of 
ti'opical  plants  are  occasionally  picked  up  on  the  beach.  My 
friend  gave  me  a  bean  or  nut  of  the  Dolichos  urens,  or  cow- 
itch  shrub,  of  the  West  Indies,  which  an  islander  had  found 
on  the  shore  sometime  in  the  previous  year,  and  given  to 
one  of  the  manse  children  as  a  toy ;  and  I  attach  some  little 
interest  to  it,  as  a  curiosity  of  the  same  class  with  the  large 
^canes  and  the  fragment  of  carved  wood  found  floating  near 
the  shores  of  Madeira  by  the  brother-in-law  of  Columbus, 
and  which,  among  other  pieces  of  circumstantial  evidence, 
led  the  great  navigator  to  infer  the  existence  of  a  western 
continent.  Curiosities  of  this  kind  seem  still  more  common 
in  the  northern  than  in  the  western  islands  of  Scotland. 
"Large  exotic  nuts  or  seeds,"  says  Dr.  Patrick  Neill,  in  his 
interesting  "  Tour,"  quoted  in  a  former  chapter,  "  which  in 
Orkney  are  known  by  the  name  of  Molucca  beans,  are  oc- 
casionally found  among  the  rejectamenta  of  the  sea,  especially 
after  westerly  winds.  There  are  two  kinds  commonly 
found :  the  larger  (of  which  the  fishermen  very  generally 
make  snuff-boxes)  seem  to  be  seeds  from  the  great  pod  of 
the  Mimosa  scandens  of  the  West  Indies ;  the  smaller  seeds, 
from  the  pod  of  the  Dolichos  urens,  also  a  native  of  the 
same  region.  It  is  probable  that  the  currents  of  the  ocean, 
and  particularly  that  great  current  which  issues  from  the 


64  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

Gulf  of  Florida,  and  is  hence  denominated  the  Gulf  Stream, 
aid  very  much  in  ti'ansporting  across  the  mighty  Atlantic 
these  American  products.  They  are  generally  quite  fresh 
and  entire,  and  afford  an  additional  proof  how  impervioiis 
to  moisture,  and  how  imperishable,  nuts  and  seeds  generally 
are." 

The  evening  was  fast  falling  ere  the  minister  closed  his 
discourse ;  and  we  had  but  just  light  enough  left,  on  reach- 
ing the  Betsey,  to  show  us  that  there  lay  a  dead  sheep  on 
the  deck.  It  had  been  sent  aboard  to  be  killed  by  the 
minister's  factotum,  John  Stewart';  but  John  was  at  the 
evening  preaching  at  the  time,  and  the  poor  sheep,  in  its 
attempts  to  set  itself  free,  had  got  itself  entangled  among 
the  cords,  and  strangled  itself.  "Alas,  alas!"  exclaimed 
the  minister,  "  thus  ends  our  hope  of  fresh  mutton  for  the 
present,  and  my  hapless  speculation  as  a  sheep  farmer  for 
evermore."  I  learned  from  him,  afterwards,  over  our  tea, 
that  shortly  previous  to  the  Convocation  he  had  got  his 
glebe, —  one  of  the  largest  in  Scotland, —  well  stocked  with 
sheep  and  cattle,  which  he  had  to  sell,  immediately  on  the 
Disruption,  in  miserably  bad  condition,  at  a  loss  of  nearly 
fifty  per  cent.  He  had  a  few  sheep,  however,  that  would 
not  sell  at  all,  and  that  remained  on  the  glebe,  in  conse- 
quence, until  his  successor  entered  into  possession.  And 
he,  honest  man,  straightway  impounded  them,  and  got 
them  incarcerated  in  a  dark,  dirty  hole,  somewhat  in  the 
way  Giant  Despair  incarcerated  the  pilgrims, —  a  thing  he 
had  quite  a  legal  right  to  do,  seeing  that  the  mile-long  glebe, 
with  its  many  acres  of  luxuriant  pasture,  was  now  as  much 
his  property  as  it  had  been  Mr.  Swanson's  a  few  months 
before,  and  seeing  Mr.  Swanson's  few  sheep  had  no  right  to 
crop  his  grass.  But  a  worthy  neighbor  interfered, —  Mr. 
M'Donald,  of  Keil,  the  principal  tenant  in  the  island.  Mi. 
M'Donald, —  a  practical  commentator  on  the  law  of  kind- 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.  65 

ness,  —  Avas  sorely  scandalized  at  what  he  deemed  the  new 
minister's  gratuitous  unkindncss  to  a  brother  in  calamity ; 
and,  relieving  the  sheep,  he  brought  them  to  his  own  farm, 
where  he  found  them  board  and  lodging  on  my  friend's  be- 
half, till  they  could  be  used  up  at  leisure.  And  it  was  one 
of  the  last  of  this  unfortunate  lot  that  now  contrived  to 
escape  from  us  by  anticipating  John  Stewart.  "  A  black 
beginning  makes  a  black  ending,"  said  Gouffing  Jock,  an 
ancient  border  shepherd,  when  his  only  sheep,  a  black  ewe, 
the  sole  survivor  of  a  flock  smothered  in  a  snow-storm,  was 
worried  to  death  by 'his  dogs.  Then,  taking  down  his 
broadsword,  he  added,  "  Come  awa,  my  auld  friend ;  thou 
and  I  maun  e'en  stock  Bowerhope-Law  ance  mair ! "  Less 
warlike  than  Goufiing  Jock,  we  were  content  to  repeat  over 
the  dead,  on  this  occasion,  simply  the  first  portion  of  his 
speech ;  and  then,  betaking  ourselves  to  our  cabin,  we  for- 
got all  our  sorrows  over  our  tea. 

6* 


CHAPTER    IV. 

An  Excursion  —  The  Chain  of  Crosses — Bay  of  Laig — Island  of  Rum — Descrip- 
tion of  the  Island  —  Superstitions  banished  by  pure  Religion — Fossil  Shells  — 
Remarkable  Oyster  Bed  —  New  species  of  Belemnite — Oolitic  Shells  —  White 
Sandstone  Precipices  —  Gigantic  Petrified  Mushrooms — "Christabel"  in 
Stone  —  Musical  Sand  —  Jabel  Nakous,  or  Mountain  of  the  Bell  —  Experiments 
of  Travellers  at  Jabel  Nakous  —  Welsted's  Account  —  Reg-Rawan,  or  the  Mov- 
ing Sand —  The  Musical  Sounds  inexplicable  —  Article  on  the  subject  in  the 
North  British  Review. 

THERE  had  been  rain  during  the  night ;  and  when  I  first 
got  on  deck,  a  little  after  seven,  a  low  stratum  of  mist,  that 
completely  enveloped  the  Scuir,  and  truncated  both  the 
eminence  on  which  it  stands  and  the  opposite  height, 
stretched  like  a  ruler  across  the  flat  valley  which  indents  so 
deeply  the  middle  of  the  island.  But  the  fogs  melted  away 
as  the  morning  rose,  and  ere  our  breakfast  was  satisfactorily 
discussed,  the  last  thin  wreath  had  disappeared  from  around 
the  columned  front  of  the  rock-tower  of  Eigg,  and  a  power- 
ful sun  looked  down  on  moist  slopes  and  dank  hollows,  from 
which  there  arose  in  the  calm  a  hazy  vapor,  that,  while  it 
softened  the  lower  features  of  the  landscape,  left  the  bold 
outline  relieved  against  a  clear  sky.  Accompanied  by  our 
attendant  of  the  previous  day,  bearing  bag  and  hammer,  we 
set  out  a  little  before  eleven  for  the  north-\vestern  side  of 
the  island,  by  a  road  which  winds  along  the  central  hollow. 
My  friend  showed  me  as  we  went,  that  on  the  edge  of  an 
eminence,  on  which  the  traveller  journeying  westwards 
catches  the  last  glimpse  of  the  chapel  of  St.  Donan,  there 
had  once  been  a  rude  cross  erected,  and  another  rude  cross 
on  an  eminence  on  which  he  catches  the  last  glimpse  of  the 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     67 

first;  and  that  there  had  thus  been  a  chain  of  stations 
formed  from  sea  to  sea,  like  the  sights  of  a  land-surveyor, 
from  one  of  which  a  second  could  be  seen,  and  a  third  from 
the  second,  till,  last  of  all,  the  emphatically  holy  point  of  the 
island, —  the  burial-place  of  the  old  Culdee, —  came  full  in 
view.  The  unsteady  devotion,  that  journeyed,  fancy-bound, 
along  the  heights,  to  gloat  over  a  dead  man's  bones,  had  its 
clue  to  carry  it  on  in  a  straight  line.  Its  trail  was  on  the 
ground ;  it  glided  snake-like  from  cross  to  cross,  in  quest  of 
dust ;  and,  without  its  finger-posts  to  guide  it,  would  have 
wandered  devious.  It  is  surely  a  better  devotion  that,  in- 
stead of  thus  creeping  over  the  earth  to  a  mouldy  sepulchre, 
can  at  once  launch  into  the  sky,  secure  of  finding  Him  who 
once  arose  from  one.  In  less  than  an  hour  we  were"  de- 
scending on  the  Bay  of  Laig,  a  semicircular  indentation  of 
the  coast,  about  a  mile  in  length,  and,  where  it  opens  to  the 
main  sea,  nearly  two  miles  in  breadth ;  with  the  noble  island 
of  Rum  rising  high  in  front,  like  some  vast  breakwater ;  and 
a  meniscus  of  comparatively  level  land,  walled  in  behind  by 
a  semicircular  rampart  of  continuous  precipice,  sweeping 
round  its  shores.  There  are  few  finer  scenes  in  the  Hebrides 
than  that  furnished  by  this  island  bay  and  its  picturesque 
accompaniments, —  none  that  break  more  unexpectedly  on 
the  traveller  who  descends  upon  it  from  the  east ;  and  rarely 
has  it  been  seen  to  greater  advantage  than  on  the  delicate 
day,  so  soft,  and  yet  so  sunshiny  and  clear,  on  which  I  paid 
it  my  first  visit. 

The  island  of  Rum,  with  its  abrupt  sea-wall  of  rock,  and 
its  steep-pointed  hills,  that  attain,  immediately  over  the  sea, 
an  elevation  of  more  than  two  thousand  feet,  loomed  bold 
and  high  in  the  offing,  some  five  miles  away,  but  apparently 
much  nearer.  The  four  tall  summits  of  the  island  rose 
clear  against  the  sky  like  a  group  of  pyramids ;  its  lower 
slopes  and  precipices,  variegated  and  relieved  by  graceful 


68         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

alternations  of  light  and  shadow,  and  resting  on  their  blue 
basement  of  sea,  stood  out  with  equal  distinctness;  but 
the  entire  middle  space  from  end  to  end  was  hidden  in  a 
long  horizontal  stratum  of  gray  cloud,  edged  atop  with  a 
lacing  of  silver.  Such  was  the  aspect  of  the  noble  break- 
water in  front.  Fully  two-thirds  of  the  semicircular  ram- 
part of  rock  which  shuts  in  the  crescent-shaped  plain  directly 
opposite  lay  in  deep  shadow ;  but  the  sun  shone  softly  on 
the  plain  itself,  brightening  up  many  a  dingy  cottage,  and 
many  a  green  patch  of  corn ;  and  the  bay  below  stretched 
out,  sparkling  in  the  light.  There  is  no  part  of  the  island 
so  thickly  inhabited  as  this  flat  meniscus.  It  is  composed 
almost  entirely  of  Oolitic  rocks,  and  bears  atop,  especially 
where  an  ancient  oyster-bed  of  great  depth  forms  the  subsoil, 
a  kindly  and  fertile  mould.  The  cottages  lie  in  groups ;  and, 
save  where  a  few  bogs,  which  it  would  be  no  very  difficult 
matter  to  drain,  interpose  their  rough  shag  of  dark  green, 
and  break  the  continuity,  the  plain  around  them  waves  with 
corn.  Lying  fair,  green  and  populous  within  the  sweep  of 
its  inaccessible  rampart  of  rock,  at  least  tAvice  as  lofty  as  the 
ramparts  of  Babylon  of  old,  it  reminds  one  of  the  suburbs 
of  some  ancient  city  lying  embosomed,  with  all  its  dwell- 
ings and  fields,  within  some  roomy  crescent  of  the  city  wall. 
We  passed,  ere  we  entered  on  the  level,  a  steep-sided  nar- 
row dell,  through  which  a  small  stream  finds  its  way  from 
the  higher  grounds,  and  which  terminates  at  the  upper 
end  in  an  abrupt  precipice,  and  a  lofty  but  very  slim  cas- 
cade. "  One  of  the  few  superstitions  that  still  linger  on 
the  island,"  said  my  friend  the  minister,  "  is  associated  with 
that  wild  hollow.  It  is  believed  that  shortly  before  a  death 
tak-s  place  among  the  inhabitants,  a  tall  withered  female 
may  be  seen  in  the  twilight,  just  yonder  where  the  rocks 
open,  washing  a  shroud  in  the  stream.  John,  there,  will 
perhaps  tell  you  how  she  was  spoken  to  on  one  occasion,  by 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  69 

an  over-bold,  over-inquisitive  islander,  curious  to  know  whose 
shroud  she  was  preparing ;  and  how  she  more  than  satisfied 
his  curiosity,  by  telling  him  it  was  his  own.  It  is  a  not  un- 
interesting fact,"  added  the  minister,  "  that  my  poor  people, 
since  they  have  become  more  earnest  about  their  religion, 
think  very  little  about  ghosts  and  spectres :  their  faith  in 
the  realities  of  the  unseen  world  seems  to  have  banished 
from  their  minds  much  of  their  old  belief  in  its  phantoms." 

In  the  rude  fences  that  separate  from  each  other  the  little 
farms  in  this  plain,  we  find  frequent  fragments  of  the  oyster 
bed,  hardened  into  a  tolerably  compact  limestone.  It  is 
seen  to  most  advantage,  however,  in  some  of  the  deeper 
cuttings  in  the  fields,  where  the  surrounding  matrix  exists 
merely  as  an  incoherent  shale ;  and  the  shells  may  be  picked 
out  as  entire  as  when  they  lay,  ages  before,  in  the  mud, 
which  we  still  see  retaining  around  them  its  original  color. 
They  are  small,  thin,  triangular,  much  resembling  in  form 
some  specimens  of  the  Ostrea  deltoidea,  but  greatly  less  in 
size.  The  nearest  resembling  shell  in  Sowerby  is  the  Ostrea 
acuminata, —  an  oyster  of  the  clay  that  underlies  the  great 
Oolite  of  Bath.  Few  of  the  shells  exceed  an  inch  and  a 
half  in  length,  and  the  majority  fall  short  of  an  inch.  What 
they  lack  in  bulk,  however,  they  make  up  in  number.  They 
are  massed  as  thickly  together,  to  the  depth  of  several  feet, 
as  shells  on  the  heap  at  the  door  of  a  Newhaven  fisherman, 
and  extend  over  many  acres.  Where  they  lie  open  we  can 
still  detect  the  triangular  disc  of  the  hinge,  with  the  single 
impression  of  the  abductor  muscle ;  and  the  foliaceous 
character  of  the  shell  remains  in  most  instances  as  distinct 
as  if  it  had  undergone  no  mineral  change.  I  have  seen 
nowhere  in  Scotland,  among  the  secondary  formations,  so 
unequivocal  an  oyster-bed  ;  nor  do  such  beds  seem  to  be  at 
all  common  in  formations  older  than  the  Tertiary  in  Eng- 
land, though  the  oyster  itself  is  sufficiently  so.  We  find 


70  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY  ;    OB, 

Mantell  stating,  in  his  recent  work  ("  Medals  of  Creation"), 
after  first  describing  an  immense  oyster  bed  of  the  London 
Basin,  that  underlies  the  city  (for  what  is  now  London  was 
once  an  oyster-bed),  that  in  the  chalk  below,  though  it  con- 
tains several  species  of  Ostrea,  the  shells  are  diffused  pro- 
miscuously throughout  the  general  mass.  Leaving,  how- 
ever, these  oysters  of  the  Oolite,  which  never  net  inclosed 
nor  drag  disturbed,  though  they  must  have  formed  the 
food  of  many  an  extinct  order  of  fish,  —  mayhap  reptile,  — 
we  pass  on  in  a  south-western  direction,  descending  in  the 
geological  scale  as  we  go,  until  we  reach  the  southern  side 
of  the  Bay  of  Laig.  And  there,  far  below  tide-mark,  we 
find  a  dark-colored  argillaceous  shale  of  the  Lias,  greatly 
obscured  by  boulders  of  trap,  —  the  only  deposit  of  the 
Liasic  formation  in  the  island. 

A  line  of  trap-hills  that  rises  along  the  shore  seems  as  if 
it  had  strewed  half  its  materials  over  the  beach.  The  rug- 
ged blocks  lie  thick  as  stones  in  a  causeway,  down  to  the 
line  of  low  ebb, — memorials  of  a  time  when  the  surf 
dashed  against  the  shattered  bases  of  the  trap-hills,  now 
elevated  considerably  beyond  its  reach ;  and  we  can  catch 
but  partial  glimpses  of  the  shale  below.  "Wherever  access 
to  it  can  be  had,  we  find  it  richly  fossiliferous ;  but  its 
organisms,  with  the  exception  of  its  Belemnites,  are  very 
imperfectly  preserved.  I  dug  up  from  under  the  trap- 
blocks  some  of  the  common  Liasic  Ammonites  of  the  north- 
eastern coast  of  Scotland,  a  few  of  the  septa  of  a  large 
Nautilus,  broken  pieces  of  wood,  and  half-effaced  casts  of 
what  seems  a  branched  coral ;  but  only  minute  portions  of 
the  shells  have  been  converted  into  stone ;  here  and  there 
a  few  chambers  in  the  whorls  of  an  Ammonite  or  Nautilus, 
though  the  outline  of  the  entire  organism  lies  impressed  in 
the  shale ;  and  the  ligneous  and  polyparious  fossils  we  find 
in  a  still  greater  state  of  decay.  The  Belemnite  alone,  as 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.  71 

is  common  with  this  robust  fossil,  —  so  often  the  sole 
survivor  of  its  many  contemporaries,  —  has  preserved  its 
structure  entire.  I  disinterred  from  the  shale  good  speci- 
mens of  the  Belemnite  sulcatus  and  Belemnite  elongatus, 
and  found,  detached  on  the  surface  of  the  bed,  a  fragment 
of  a  singularly  large  Belemnite,  a  full  inch  and  a  quarter  in 
diameter,  the  species  of  which  I  could  not  determine. 

Returning  by  the  track  we  came,  we  reach  the  bottom 
of  the  bay,  which  we  find  much  obscured  with  sand  and 
shingle ;  and  pass  noi'th wards  along  its  side,  under  a  range 
of  low  sandstone  precipices,  with  interposing  grassy  slopes, 
in  which  the  fertile  Oolitic  meniscus  descends  to  the  beach. 
The  sandstone,  white  and  soft,  and  occurring  in  thick  beds, 
much  resembles  that  of  the  Oolite  of  Sutherland.  We 
detect  in  it  few  traces  of  fossils ;  now  and  then  a  carbona- 
ceous marking,  and  now  and  then  what  seems  a  thin  vein 
of  coal,  but  which  proves  to  be  merely  the  bark  of  some 
woody  stem,  converted  into  a  glossy  bituminous  lignite, 
like  that  of  Brora.  But  in  beds  of  a  blue  clay,  intercalated 
with  the  sandstone,  we  find  fossils  in  abundance,  of  a  char- 
acter less  obscure.  We  spent  a  full  half-hour  in  picking 
out  shells  from  the  bottom  of  a  long  dock-like  hollow 
among  the  rocks,  in  which  a  bed  of  clay  has  yielded  to  the 
waves,  while  the  strata  on  either  side  stand  up  over  it  like 
low  wharfs  on  the  opposite  side  of  a  river.  The  shells, 
though  exceedingly  fragile,  —  for  they  partake  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  clayey  matrix  in  which  they  are  imbedded, — 
rise  as  entire  as  when  they  had  died  among  the  mud,  years, 
mayhap  ages,  ere  the  sandstone  had  been  deposited  over 
them;  and  we  were  enabled  at  once  to  detect  their  ex- 
treme dissimilarity,  as  a  group,  to  the  shells  of  the  Liasic 
deposit  we  had  so  lately  quitted.  We  did  not  find  in  this 
bed  a  single  Ammonite,  Belemnite,  or  Nautilus ;  but  chalky 
Bivalves,  resembling  our  existing  Tellina,  in  vast  abund- 


72  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY;     OR, 

ance,  mixed  with  what  seem  to  be  a  small  Buccinum  and  a 
minute  Trochus,  with  numerous  rather  equivocal  fragments 
of  a  shell  resembling  an  Oiliva.  So  thickly  do  they  lie 
clustered  together  in  this  deposit,  that  in  some  patches 
where  the  sad-colored  argillaceous  ground  is  washed  bare 
by  the  sea,  it  seems  marbled  with  them  into  a  light  gray 
tint.  The  group  more  nearly  resembles  in  type  a  recent 
one  than  any  I  have  yet  seen  in  a  secondary  deposit,  except 
perhaps  in  the  Weald  of  Moray,  where  we  find  in  one  of 
the  layers  a  Planorbis  scarce  distinguishable  from  those  of 
our  ponds  and  ditches,  mingled  with  a  Paludina  that  seems 
as  nearly  modelled  after  the  existing  form.  From  the 
absence  of  the  more  characteristic  shells  of  the  Oolite,  I  am 
inclined  to  deem  the  deposit  one  of  estuary  origin.  Its 
clays  were  probably  thrown  down,  like  the  silts  of  so  many 
of  our  rivers,  in  some  shallow  bay,  where  the  waters  of  a 
descending  stream  mingled  with  those  of  the  sea,  and 
where,  though  shells  nearly  akin  to  our  existing  periwinkles 
and  whelks  congregate  thickly,  the  Belemnite,  scared  by 
the  brackish  water,  never  plied  its  semi-cartilaginous  fins, 
or  the  Nautilus  or  Ammonite  hoisted  its  membranaceous 
sail. 

We  pass  on  towards  the  north.  A  thick  bed  of  an  ex- 
tremely soft  white  sandstone  presents  here,  for  nearly  half 
a  mile  together,  its  front  to  the  waves,  and  exhibits,  under 
the  incessant  wear  of  the  surf,  many  singularly  grotesque 
combinations  of  form.  The  low  precipices,  undermined  at 
the  base,  beetle  over  like  the  sides  of  stranded  vessels. 
One  of  the  projecting  promontories  we  find  hollowed 
through  and  through  by  a  tall  rugged  archway ;  while  the 
outer  pier  of  the  arch,  —  if  pier  we  may  term  it,  —  worn 
to  a  skeleton,  and  jutting  outwards  with  a  knee-like  angle, 
presents  the  appearance  of  a  thin  ungainly  leg  and  splay 
foot,  advanced,  as  if  in  awkward  courtesy,  to  the  breakers. 


A    SUMMEll    K AMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  73 

But  in  a  winter  or  two,  judging  from  its  present  degree  of 
attenuation,  and  the  yielding  nature  of  its  material,  which 
resembles  a  damaged  mass  of  arrow-root,  consolidated  by 
lying  in  the  leaky  hold  of  a  vessel,  its  persevering  courte- 
sies will  be  over,  and  pier  and  archway  must  lie  in  shapeless 
fragments  on  the  beach.  Wherever  the  surf  has  broken 
into  the  upper  surface  of  this  sand-stone  bed,  and  worn  it 
down  to  nearly  the  level  of  the  shore,  what  seem  a  number 
of  double  ramparts,  fronting  each  other,  and  separated  by 
deep  square  ditches  exactly  parallel  in  the  sides,  traverse 
the  irregular  level  in  every  direction.  The  ditches  vary  in 
width  from  one  to  twelve  feet ;  and  the  ramparts,  rising 
from  three  to  six  feet  over  them,  are  perpendicular  as  the 
walls  of  houses,  where  they  front  each  other,  and  descend 
on  the  opposite  sides  in  irregular  slopes.  The  iron  block, 
with  square  groove  and  projecting  ears,  that  receives  the 
bar  of  a  railway,  and  connects  it  with  the  stone  below,  rep- 
resents not  inadequately  a  section  of  one  of  these  ditches, 
with  its  ramparts.  They  form  here  the  sole  remains  ot 
dykes  of  an  earthy  trap,  which,  though  at  one  time  in  a 
state  of  such  high  fusion  that  they  converted  the  portions 
of  soft  sandstone  in  immediate  contact  with  them  into  the 
consistence  of  quartz  rock,  have  long  since  mouldered 
away,  leaving  but  the  hollow  rectilinear  rents  which  they 
had  occupied,  surmounted  by  the  indurated  walls  which 
they  had  baked.  Some  of  the  most  curious  appearances, 
however,  connected  with  the  sandstone,  though  they  occur 
chiefly  in  an  upper  bed,  are  exhibited  by  what  seem  fields 
of  petrified  mushrooms,  of  a  gigantic  size,  that  spread  out 
in  some  places  for  hundreds  of  yards  under  the  high-water 
level.  These  apparent  mushrooms  stand  on  thick  squat 
stems,  from  a  foot  to  eighteen  inches  in  height ;  the  heads 
are  round  like  those  of  toad-stools,  and  vary  from  one  foot 
to  nearly  two  yards  in  diameter.  In  some  specimens  we 


74          THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OK, 

find  two  heads  joined  together  in  a  form  resembling  a 
squat  figure  of  eight,  of  what  printers  terra  the  Egyptian 
type,  or,  to  borrow  the  illustration  of  M'Culloch,  "  like  the 
ancient  military  projectile  known  by  the  name  of  double- 
headed  shot ; "  in  other  specimens  three  heads  have  coa- 
lesced in  a  trefoil  shape,  or  rather  in  a  shape  like  that  of  an 
ace  of  clubs  divested  of  the  stem.  By  much  the  greater 
number,  however,  are  spherical.  They  are  composed  of 
concretionary  masses,  consolidated,  like  the  walls  of  the 
dykes,  though  under  some  different  process,  into  a  hard 
siliceous  stone,  that  has  resisted  those  disintegrating  influ- 
ences of  the  weather  and  the  surf,  under  which  the  yielding 
matrix  in  which  they  -were  embedded  has  worn  from 
around  them.  Here  and  there  we  find  them  lying  detached 
on  the  beach,  like  huge  shot,  compared  with  Avhich  the 
greenstone  balls  of  Mons  Meg  are  but  marbles  for  children 
to  play  with ;  in  other  cases  they  project  from  the  mural 
front  of  rampart-like  precipices,  as  if  they  had  been  show- 
ered into  them  by  the  ordnance  of  some  besieging  battery, 
and  had  stuck  fast  in  the  mason-work.  Abbotsford  has 
been  described  as  a  romance  in  stone  and  lime ;  we  have 
here,  on  the  shores  of  Laig,  what  seems  a  wild  but  agreea- 
ble tale,  of  the  exti'avagant  cast  of  "  Christabel,"  or  the 
"  Rhyme  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,"  fretted  into  sandstone. 
But  by  far  the  most  curious  part  of  the  story  remains  tfl 
be  told. 

The  hollows  and  fissures  of  the  lower  sandstone  bed  we 
find  filled  with  a  fine  quartzose  sand,  which,  from  its  pun 
white  color,  and  the  clearness  with  which  the  minute  par. 
tides  reflect  the  light,  reminds  one  of  accumulations  of 
potato-flour  drying  in  the  sun.  It  is  formed  almost  entirely 
of  disintegrated  particles  of  the  soft  sandstone  ;  and  as  we 
at  first  find  it  occurring  in  mere  handfuls,  that  seem  as  if 
they  had  been  detached  from  the  mass  during  the  last  few 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     75 

tides,  we  begin  to  marvel  to  what  quarter  the  missing 
materials  of  the  many  hundred  cubic  yards  of  rock,  ground 
down  along  the  shore  in  this  bed  during  the  last  century  or 
two,  have  been  conveyed  away.  As  we  pass  on  northwards, 
however,  we  see  the  white  sand  occurring  in  much  larger 
quantities,  —  here  heaped  up  in  little  bent-covered  hillocks 
above  the  reach  of  the  tide,  —  there  stretching  out  in  level, 
ripple-marked  wastes  into  the  waves,  —  yonder  rising  in  flat 
narrow  spits  among  the  shallows.  At  length  we  reach  a 
small,  irregularly-formed  bay,  a  few  hundred  feet  across, 
floored  with  it  from  side  to  side ;  and  see  it,  on  the  one 
hand,  descending  deep  into  the  sea,  that  exhibits  over  its 
whiteness  a  lighter  tint  of  green,  and,  on  the  other,  en- 
croaching on  the  land,  in  the  form  of  drifted  banks,  cov- 
ered with  the  plants  common  to  our  tracts  of  sandy  downs. 
The  sandstone  bed  that  has  been  worn  down  to  form  it 
contains  no  fossils,  save  here  and  there  a  carbonaceous 
stem ;  but  in  an  underlying  harder  stratum  we  occasionally 
find  a  few  shells ;  and,  with  a  specimen  in  my  hand  charged 
with  a  group  of  bivalves  resembling  the  existing  conchifera 
of  our  sandy  beaches,  I  was  turning  aside  this  sand  of  the 
Oolite,  so  curiously  reduced  to  its  original  state,  and  mark- 
ing how  nearly  the  recent  shells  that  lay  embedded  in  it 
resembled  the  extinct  ones  that  had  lain  in  it  so  long  before, 
when  I  became  aware  of  a  peculiar  sound  that  it  yielded  to 
the  tread,  as  my  companions  paced  over  it.  I  struck  it 
obliquely  with  my  foot,  where  the  surface  lay  dry  and  inco- 
herent in  the  sun,  and  the  sound  elicited  was  a  shrill, 
sonorous  note,  somewhat  resembling  that  produced  by  a 
waxed  thread,  when  tightened  between  the  teeth  and  the 
hand,  and  tipped  by  the  nail  of  the  forefinger.  I  walked 
over  it,  striking  it  obliquely  at  each  step,  and  with  every 
blow  the  shrill  note  was  repeated.  My  companions  joined 
me ;  and  we  performed  a  concert,  in  which,  if  we  could 


7G         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  Oil, 

boast  of  but  little  variety  in  the  tones  produced,  we  might 
at  least  challenge  all  Europe  for  an  instrument  of  the  kind 
which  produced  them.  It  seemed  less  wonderful  that  there 
should  be  music  in  the  granite  of  Memnon,  than  in  the 
loose  Oolitic  sand  of  the  Bay  of  Laig.  As  we  marched 
over  the  drier  tracts,  an  incessant  woo,  icoo,  ?coo,  rose  from 
the  surface,  that  might  be  heard  in  the  calm  some  twenty 
or  thirty  yards  away ;  and  we  found  that  where  a  damp 
semi-coherent  stratum  lay  at  the  depth  of  three  or  four 
inches  beneath,  and  all  was  dry  and  incoherent  above,  the 
tones  were  loudest  and  sharpest,  and  most  easily  evoked  by 
the  foot.  Our  discovery, —  for  I  trust  I  may  regard  it  as 
such, —  adds  a  third  locality  to  two  previously  known  ones, 
in  which  what  may  be  termed  the  musical  sand, —  no 
unmeet  counterpart  to  the  "  singing  water  "  of  the  tale, — 
has  now  been  found.  And  as  the  island  of  Eigg  is  consid- 
erably more  accessible  than  Jabel  Nakous,  in  Arabia  Pet  rrea, 
or  Reg-Raman,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Cabul,  there  must 
be  facilities  presented  through  the  discovery  which  did  not 
exist  hitherto,  for  examining  the  phenomenon  in  acoustics 
which  it  exhibits, —  a  phenomenon,  it  may  be  added,  which 
some  of  our  greatest  masters  of  the  science  have  confessed 
their  inability  to  explain. 

Jabel  Nakous,  or  the  "  Mountain  of  the  Bell,"  is  situ- 
ated about  three  miles  from  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez, 
in  that  land  of  wonders  which  witnessed  for  forty  years  the 
journeyings  of  the  Israelites,  and  in  which  the  granite 
peaks  of  Sinai  and  Horeb  overlook  an  arid  wilderness  of 
rock  and  sand.  It  had  been  known  for  many  ages  by  the 
wild  Arab  of  the  desert,  that  thei-e  rose  at  times  from  this 
hill  a  strange,  inexplicable  music.  As  he  leads  his  camel 
past  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  a  sound  like  the  first  low  tones 
of  an  ./Eolian  harp  stirs  the  hot  breezeless  air.  It  swells 
louder  and  louder  in  progressive  undulations,  till  at  length 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THt    HEBRIDES.  77 

the  dry  baked  earth  seems  to  vibrate  under  foot,  and  the 
startled  animal  snorts  and  rears,  and  struggles  to  break 
away.  According  to  the  Arabian  account  of  the  phenom- 
enon, says  Sir  David  Brewster,  in  his  "  Letters  on  Natural 
Magic,"  there  is  a  convent  miraculously  preserved  in  the 
bowels  of  the  hill ;  and  the  sounds  are  said  to  be  those  of 
the  "  Nakous,  a  long  metallic  ruler,  suspended  horizontally, 
which  the  priest  strikes  with  a  hammer,  for  the  purpose  of 
assembling  the  monks  to  prayer."  There  exists  a  tradition 
that  on  one  occasion  a  wandering  Greek  saw  the  mountain 
open,  and  that,  entering  by  the  gap,  he  descended  into  the 
subterranean  convent,  where  he  found  beautiful  gardens 
and  fountains  of  delicious  water,  and  brought  with  him  to 
the  upper  world,  on  his  return,  fragments  of  consecrated 
bread.  The  first  European  traveller  who  visited  Jcibel 
Nakous,  says  Sir  David,  was  M.  Seetzen,  a  German.  He 
journeyed  for  several  hours  over  arid  sands,  and  under 
ranges  of  precipices  inscribed  by  mysterious  characters,  that 
tell,  haply,  of  the  wanderings  of  Israel  under  Moses.  And 
reaching,  about  noon,  the  base  of  the  musical  fountain,  he 
found  it  composed  of  a  white  friable  sandstone,  and  present- 
ing on  two  of  its  sides  sandy  declivities.  He  watched 
beside  it  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  and  then  heard,  for  the 
first  time,  a  low  undulating  sound,  somewhat  resembling 
that  of  a  humming  top,  which  rose  and  fell,  and  ceased  and 
began,  and  then  ceased  again  ;  and  in  an  hour  and  three 
quarters  after,  when  in  the  act  of  climbing  along  the  de- 
clivity, he  heard  the  sound  yet  louder  and  more  prolonged. 
It  seemed  as  if  issuing  from  under  his  knees,  beneath  which 
the  sand,  disturbed  by  his  efforts,  was  sliding  downwards 
along  the  surface  of  the  rock.  Concluding  that  the  sliding 
sand  was  the  cause  of  the  sounds,  not  an  effect  of  the  vibra- 
tions which  they  occasioned,  he  climbed  to  the  top  of  one 
of  the  declivities,  and,  sliding  downwards,  exerted  himself 


78         THE  CRUISE  OP  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

with  hands  and  feet  to  set  the  sand  in  motion.  The  effect 
produced  far  exceeded  his  expectations ;  the  incoherent 
sand  rolled  under  and  around  in  a  vast  sheet ;  and  so  loud 
was  the  noise  produced,  that  "  the  earth  seemed  to  tremble 
beneath  him  to  such  a  degree,  that  he  states  he  should  cer- 
tainly have  been  afraid  if  he  had  been  ignorant  of  the 
cause."  At  the  time  Sir  David  Brewster  wrote  (1832),  the 
only  other  European  who  had  visited  Jabel  Nakous  was 
Mr.  Gray,  of  University  College,  Oxford.  This  gentleman 
describes  the  noises  he  heard,  but  which  he  was  unable  to 
trace  to  their  producing  cause,  as  "  beginning  with  a  low 
continuous  murmuring  sound,  which  seemed  to  rise  beneath 
his  feet,"  but  "  which  gradually  changed  into  pulsations  as 
it  became  louder,  so  as  to  resemble  the  striking  of  a  clock, 
and  became  so  strong  at  the  end  of  five  minutes  as  to  de- 
tach the  sand."  The  Mountain  of  the  Bell  has  been  since 
carefully  explored  by  Lieutenant  J.  Welsted,  of  the  Indian 
navy ;  and  the  reader  may  see  it  exhibited  in  a  fine  litho- 
graph, in  his  travels,  as  a  vast  irregularly  conical  mass  of 
broken  stone,  somewhat  resembling  one  of  our  Highland 
cairns,  though,  of  course,  on  a  scale  immensely  more  huge, 
with  a  steep,  angular  slope  of  sand  resting  in  a  hollow  in 
one  of  its  sides,  and  rising  to  nearly  its  apex.  "It  forms," 
says  Lieutenant  Welsted,  "  one  of  a  ridge  of  low,  calcare- 
ous hills,  at  a  distance  of  three  and  a  half  miles  from  the 
beach,  to  which  a  sandy  plain,  extending  with  a  gentle  rise 
to  their  base,  connects  them.  Its  height,  about  four  hundred 
feet,  as  well  as  the  material  of  which  it  is  composed,  —  a 
light-colored  friable  sandstone, — is  about  the  same  as  the 
rest  of  the  chain;  but  an  inclined  plane  of  almost  impalpa^ 
ble  sand  rises  at  an  angle  of  forty  degrees  with  the  horizon, 
and  is  bounded  by  a  semi-circle  of  rocks,  presenting  broken, 
abrupt,  and  pinnacled  forms,  and  extending  to  the  base  of 
this  remarkable  hill.  Although  their  shape  and  arrange- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     79 

ment  in  some  respects  may  be  said  to  resemble  a  whisper- 
ing gallery,  yet  I  determined  by  experiment  that  their 
irregular  surface  renders  them  but  ill  adapted  for  the  pro- 
duction of  an  echo.  Seated  at  a  rock  at  the  base  of  the 
sloping  eminence,  I  directed  one  of  the  Bedouins  to  ascend ; 
and  it  was  not  until  he  had  reached  some  distance  that  I 
perceived  the  sand  in  motion,  rolling  down  the  hill  to  the 
depth  of  a  foot.  It  did  not,  however,  descend  in  one  con- 
tinued stream ;  but,  as  the  Ai'ab  scrambled  up,  it  spread  out 
laterally  and  upwards,  until  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
surface  was  in  motion.  At  their  commencement  the  sounds 
might  be  compared  to  the  faint  strains  of  an  ^olian  harp 
when  its  strings  first  catch  the  breeze :  as  the  sand  became 
more  violently  agitated  by  the  increased  velocity  of  the 
descent,  the  noise  more  nearly  resembled  that  produced  by 
drawing  the  moistened  fingers  over  glass.  As  it  reached  the 
base,  the  reverberations  attained  the  loudness  of  distant 
thunder,  causing  the  rock  on  which  we  were  seated  to 
vibrate ;  and  our  camels, —  animals  not  easily  frightened, — 
became  so  alarmed  that  it  was  with  difficulty  their  drivers 
could  restrain  them. 

"The  hill  of  Mey-Rawan,  or  the  'Moving  Sand,'"  says 
the  late  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  by  whom  the  place  was 
visited  in  the  autumn  of  1837,  and  who  has  recorded  his 
visit  in  a  brief  paper,  illustrated  by  a  rude  lithographic 
view,  in  the  "Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society"  for  1838,  "is 
about  forty  miles  north  of  Cabul,  towards  Hindu-kush,  and 
near  the  base  of  the  mountains."  It  rises  to  the  height  of 
about  four  hundred  feet,  in  an  angle  formed  by  the  junction 
of  two  ridges  of  hills ;  and  a  sheet  of  sand,  "  pure  as  that  of 
the  sea-shore,"  and  which  slopes  in  an  angle  of  forty  degrees, 
reclines  against  it  from  base  to  summit.  As  represented  in 
the  lithograph,  there  projects  over  the  steep  sandy  slope  on 
each  side,  as  in  the  "  Mountain  of  the  Bell,"  still  steeper 


80         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

barriers  of  rock ;  and  we  are  told  by  Sir  Alexander,  that 
though  "  the  mountains  here  are  generally  composed  of 
granite  or  mica,  at  Rey-Rawan  there  is  sandstone  and 
lime."  The  situation  of  the  sand  is  curious,  he  adds:  it  is 
seen  from  a  ccreat  distance ;  and  as  there  is  none  other  in 

O  •* 

the  neighborhood,  "  it  might  almost  be  imagined,  from  its 
appearance,  that  the  hill  had  been  cut  in  two,  and  that  the 
sand  had  gushed  forth  as  from  a  sand-bag."  "When  set 
in  motion  by  a  body  of  people  who  slide  down  it,  a  sound 
is  emitted.  On  the  first  trial  we  distinctly  heard  two  loud 
hollow  sounds,  such  as  would  be  given  by  a  large  drum ;" 
—  "there  is  an' echo  in  the  place;  and  the  inhabitants  have 
a  beh'ef  that  the  sounds  are  only  heard  on  Friday,  when  the 
saint  of  Rey-Rawan,  who  is  interred  hard  by,  permits." 
The  phenomenon,  like  the  resembling  one  in  Arabia,  seems 
to  have  attracted  attention  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
countiy  at  an  early  period ;  and  the  notice  of  an  eastern 
annalist,  the  Emperor  Baber,  who  flourished  late  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  and,  like  Caesar,  conquered  and  recorded 
his  conquests,  still  survives.  He  describes  it  as  the  Khwaja 
Rey-Rawan,  "  a  small  hill,  in  which  there  is  a  line  of  sandy 
ground  reaching  from  the  top  to  the  bottom,"  from  which 
there  "  issues  in  the  summer  season  the  sound  of  drums  and 
nagarets."  In  connection  with  the  fact  that  the  musical 
sand  of  Eigg  is  composed  of  a  disintegrated  sandstone  of  the 
Oolite,  it  is  not  quite  unworthy  of  notice  that  sandstone  and 
lime  enter  into  the  composition  of  the  hill  of  Rey-Rawan, — 
that  the  district  in  which  the  hill  is  situated  is  not  a  sandy 
one, —  and  that  its  slope  of  sonorous  sand  seems  as  if  it  had 
issued  from  its  side.  These  various  circumstances,  taken 
together,  lead  to  the  inference  that  the  sand  may  have  orig- 
inated in  the  decomposition  of  the  rock  beneath.  It  is  fur- 
ther noticeable,  that  the  Jabel  Nakous  is  composed  of  a 
white  friable  sandstone,  resembling  that  of  the  white  friable 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  81 

bed  of  the  Bay  of  Lnig,  and  that  it  belongs  to  nearly  the 
same  geological  era.  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Wilson 
of  Bombay,  two  specimens  which  he  picked  up  in  Arabia 
Petrcea,  of  spines  of  Cidarites  of  the  mace-formed  type  so 
common  in  the  Chalk  and  Oolite,  but  so  rare  in  the  older 
formations.  Dr.  Wilson  informs  me  that  they  are  of  fre- 
quent occurrence  in  the  desert  of  Arabia  Petrsea,  where 
they  are  termed  by  the  Arabs  petrified  olives ;  that  num- 
mulites  are  also  abundant  in  the  district ;  and  that  the  vari- 
ous secondary  rocks  he  examined  in  his  route  through  it 
seem  to  belong  to  the  Cretaceous  group.  It  appears  not 
improbable,  therefore,  that  all  the  sonorous  sand  in  the 
world  yet  discovered  is  formed,  like  that  of  Eigg,  of  disin- 
tegrated sandstone;  and  at  least  two-thirds  of.it  of  the 
disintegrated  sandstone  of  secondary  formations,  newer 
than  the  Lias.  But  how  it  should  be  at  all  sonorous,  what- 
ever its  age  or  origin,  seems  yet  to  be  discovered.  There 
are  few  substances  that  appear  worse  suited  than  sand  to 
communicate  to  the  atmosphere  those  vibratory  undulations 
tli at  are  the  producing  causes  of  sound:  the  grains,  even 
when  sonorous  individually,  seem,  from  their  inevitable  con- 
tact Avith  each  other,  to  exist  under  the  influence  of  that 
simple  law  in  acoustics  which  arrests  the  tones  of  the  ring- 
ing glass  or  struck  bell,  immediately  as  they  are  but  touched 
by  some  foreign  body,  such  as  the  hand  or  finger.  The  one 
grain,  ever  in  contact  with  several  other  grains,  is  a  glass  or 
bell  on  which  the  hand  always  rests.  And  the  difficulty 
has  been  felt  and  acknowledged.  Sir  John  Herschel,  in 
referring  to  the  phenomenon  of  the  Jabel  Nakous,  in  his 
"Treatise  on  Sound,"  in  the  " Encyclopedia  Metropoli- 
tana,"  describes  it  as  to  him  "  utterly  inexplicable ; "  and 
Sir  David  Brewster,  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  in 
December  last,  assured  me  it  was  not  less  a  puzzle  to  him 
than  to  Sir  John.  An  eastern  traveller,  who  attributes  its 


82  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY;     OH, 

production  to  "a  reduplication  of  impulse  setting  air  in 
vibration  in  a  focus  of  echo,"  means,  I  suppose,  saying  nearly 
the  same  thing  as  the  two  philosophers,  and  merely  conveys 
his  meaning  in  a  less  simple  style. 

I  have  not  yet  procured  what  I  expect  to  procure  soon, — 
sand  enough  from  the  musical  bay  at  Laig  to  enable  me  to 
make  its  sonorous  qualities  the  subject  of  experiment  at 
home.  It  seems  doubtful  whether  a  small  quantity  set  in 
motion  on  an  artificial  slope  will  serve  to  evolve  the  pheno- 
mena which  have  rendered  the  Mountain  of  the  Bell  so 
famous.  Lieutenant  Welsted  informs  us,  that  when  his 
Bedouin  first  set  the  sand  in  motion,  there  was  scarce  any 
perceptible  sound  heard ;  —  it  was  rolling  downwards  for 
many  yards  around  him  to  the  depth  of  a  foot,  ere  the 
music  arose ;  and  it  is  questionable  whether  the  effect  could 
be  elicited  with  some  fifty  or  sixty  pounds  weight  of  the 
sand  of  Eigg,  on  a  slope  of  but  at  most  a  few  feet,  which  it 
took  many  hundred  weight  of  sand  of  Jabel  Nakous,  and  a 
slope  of  many  yards,  to  produce.  But  in  the  stillness  of  a 
close  room,  it  is  just  possible  that  it  may.  I  have,  however, 
little  doubt,  that  from  small  quantities  the  sound  evoked  by 
the  foot  on  the  shore  may  be  reproduced :  enough  will  lie 
within  the  reach  of  experiment  to  demonstrate  the  strange 
difference  which  exists  between  this  sonorous  sand  of  the 
Oolite,  and  the  common  unsonorous  sand  of  our  sea-beaches ; 
and  it  is  certainly  worth  while  examining  into  the  nature 
and  producing  causes  of  a  phenomenon  so  curious  in  itself, 
and  which  lias  been  characterized  by  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  living  philosophers  as  "  the  most  celebrated 
of  all  the  acoustic  wonders  which  the  natural  world  pre- 
sents to  us."  In  the  forthcoming  number  of  the  "  Xorth 
British  Review,"— which  appears  on  Monday  first,*  — the 
reader  will  find  the  sonorous  sand  of  Eigg  referred  to,  in  an 

*  March  31,  1815. 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  83 

article  the  authorship  of  which  will  scarcely  be  mistaken. 
"  We  have  here,"  says  the  writer,  after  first  describing  the 
sounds  of  Jcibel  Nak-ous^  and  then  referring  to  those  of 
Eigg,  "  the  phenomenon  in  its  simple  state,  disembarrassed 
from  reflecting  rocks,  from  a  hard  bed  beneath,  and  from 
cracks  and  cavities  that  might  be  supposed  to  admit  the 
sand ;  and  indicating  as  its  cause,  either  the  accumulated 
vibration  of  the  air  when  struck  by  the  driven  sand,  or  the 
accumulated  sounds  occasioned  by  the  mutual  impact  of  the 
particles  of  sand  against  each  other.  If  a  musket-ball  pass- 
ing through  the  air  emits  a  whistling  note,  each  individual 
particle  of  sand  must  do  the  same,  however  faint  be  the  note 
which  it  yields ;  and  the  accumulation  of  these  infinitesimal 
vibrations  must  constitute  an  audible  sound,  varying  with 
the  number  and  velocity  of  moving  particles.  In  like  man- 
ner, if  two  plates  of  silex  or  quartz,  which  are  but  large 
crystals  of  sand,  give  out  a  musical  sound  when  mutually 
struck,  the  impact  or  collision  of  two  minute  crystals  or 
particles  of  sand  must  do  the  same,  in  however  inferior  a 
degree ;  and  the  union  of  all  these  sounds,  though  singly 
imperceptible,  may  constitute  the  musical  notes  of  the  Bell 
Mountain,  or  the  lesser  sounds  of  the  trodden  sea-beach  at 
Eigg." 

Here  is  a  vigorous  effort  made  to  unlock  the  difficulty.  I 
should,  however,  have  mentioned  to  the  philosophic  writer, 
—  what  I  inadvertently  failed  to  do,  —  that  the  sounds 
elicited  from  the  sand  of  Eigg  seem  as  directly  evoked  by 
the  slant  blow  dealt  it  by  the  foot,  as  the  sounds  similarly 
evoked  from  a  highly  waxed  floor,  or  a  board  strewed  over 
with  ground  rosin.  The  sharp  shrill  note  follows  the  stroke, 
altogether  independently  of  the  grains  driven  into  the  air. 
My  omission  may  serve  to  show  how  much  safer  it  is  for 
those  minds  of  the  observant  order,  that  serve  as  hands  and 
eyes  to  the  reflective  ones,  to  prefer  incurring  the  risk  of 


84  THE   CRUISE   OP  THE   BETSEY. 

being  even  tediously  minute  in  their  descriptions,  to  the 
danger  of  being  inadequately  brief  in  them.  But,  alas  !  for 
purposes  of  exact  science,  rarely  are  verbal  descriptions 
otherwise  than  inadequate.  Let  us  look,  for  example,  at 
the  various  accounts  given  us  of  Jabel  Nakous.  There  are 
strange  sounds  heard  proceeding  from  a  hill  in  Arabia,  and 
vaiious  travellers  set  themselves  to  describe  them.  The 
tones  are  those  of  the  convent  Nakous,  says  the  wild  Arab ; 
—  there  must  be  a  convent  buried  tinder  the  hill.  More 
like  the  sounds  of  a  humming-top,  remarks  a  phlegmatic 
German  traveller.  Not  quite  like  them,  says  an  English 
one  in  an  Oxford  gown ;  —  they  resemble  rather  the  striking 
of  a  clock.  Nay,  listen  just  a  little  longer  and  more  care- 
fully, says  a  second  Englishman,  with  epaulettes  on  his 
shoulder:  "the  sounds  at  their  commencement  may  be 
compared  to  the  faint  strains  of  an  ^Eolian  harp  when  its 
strings  first  catch  the  breeze,"  but  anon,  as  the  agitation  of 
the  sand  increases,  they  "  more  nearly  resemble  those  pro- 
duced by  drawing  the  moistened  fingers  over  glass."  Not 
at  all,  exclaims  the  warlike  Zahor  Ed-din  Muhammed  Baber, 
twirling  his  whiskers :  "  I  know  a  similar  hill  in  the  country 
towards  Hindu-kush :  it  is  the  sound  of  drums  and  nagarets 
that  issues  from  the  sand."  All  we  really  know  of  this 
often-described  music  of  the  desert,  after  reading  all  the 
descriptions,  is,  that  its  tones  bear  certain  analogies  to  cer- 
tain other  tones, —  analogies  that  seem  stronger  in  one 
direction  to  one  ear,  and  stronger  in  another  direction  to 
an  ear  differently  constituted,  but  Avhich  do  not  exactly 
resemble  any  other  sounds  in  nature.  The  strange  music  of 
Jabel  Nakous,  as  a  combination  of  tones,  is  essentially 
unique. 


CHAPTER    V. 

Trap-Dykes — "Cotton  Apples"  —  Alternation  of  Lacustrine  with  Marine  Re- 
mains—  Analogy  from  the  Beds  of  Esk —  Aspect  of  the  Island  on  its  narrow 
Front — The  Puffin  —  Ru-Stoir  —  Development  of  Old  Red  Sandstone  —  Strik- 
ing Columnar  character  of  Ru-Stoir  —  Discovery  of  Reptilian  Remains — John 
Stewart's  wonder  at  the  Bones  in  the  Stones  —  Description  of  the  Bones  — 
"Dragons,  Gorgons,  and  Chimeras" — Exploration  and  Discovery  pursued  — 
The  Midway  Shieling  —  A  Celtic  Welcome  —  Return  to  the  Yacht — "Array 
of  Fossils  new  to  Scotch  Geology  " — A  Geologist's  Toast  —  Hoffman  and  his 
Fossil. 

WE  leave  behind  us  the  musical  sand,  and  reach  the 
point  of  the  promontory  which  forms  the  northern  extremity 
of  the  Bay  of  Laig.  Wherever  the  beach  has  been  swept 
bare,  we  see  it  floored  with  trap-dykes  worn  down  to  the 
level,  but  in  most  places  accumulations  of  huge  blocks  of 
various  composition  cover  it  up,  concealing  the  nature  of 
the  rock  beneath.  The  long  semicircular  wall  of  precipice 
which,  sweeping  inwards  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay,  leaves 
to  the  inhabitants  between  its  base  and  the  beach  their  fer- 
tile meniscus  of  land,  here  abuts  upon  the  coast.  We  see 
its  dark  forehead  many  hundred  feet  overhead,  and  the 
grassy  platform  beneath,  now  narrowed  to  a  mere  talus, 
sweeping  upwards  to  its  base  from  the  shore, —  steep, 
broken,  lined  thick  with  horizontal  pathways,  mottled  over 
with  ponderous  masses  of  rock. 

Among  the  blocks  that  load  the  beach,  and  render  our 
onward  progress  difficult  and  laborious,  we  detect  occasional 
fragments  of  an  amygdaloidal  basalt,  charged  with  a  white 
zeolite,  consisting  of  crystals  so  extremely  slender  that  the 
balls,  with  their  light  fibrous  contents,  remind  us  of  cotton 


86         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

apples  divested  of  the  seeds.  There  occur,  though  more 
rarely,  masses  of  a  hard  white  sandstone,  abounding  in 
vegetable  impressions,  which,  from  their  sculptured  mark- 
ings, recalled  to  memory  the  Sigillaria  of  the  Coal  Measures. 
Here  and  there,  too,  we  find  fragments  of  a  calcareous 
stone,  so  largely  charged  with  compressed  shells,  chiefly 
bivalves,  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  shell  breccia.  There 
occur,  besides,  slabs  of  fibrous  limestone,  exactly  resembling 
the  limestone  of  the  ichthyolite  beds  of  the  Lower  Old 
Red ;  and  blocks  of  a  hard  gray  stone,  of  silky  lustre  in 
the  fresh  fracture,  thickly  speckled  with  carbonaceous  mark- 
ings. These  fragmentary  masses, — all  of  them,  at  least, 
except  the  fibrous  limestone,  which  occurs  in  mere  plank- 
like  bands,  —  represent  distinct  beds,  of  which  this  part  of 
the  island  is  composed,  and  which  present  their  edges,  like 
courses  of  ashlar  in  a  building,  in  the  splendid  section  that 
stretches  from  the  tall  brow  of  the  precipice  to  the  beach ; 
though  in  the  slopes  of  the  talus,  where  the  lower  beds 
appear  in  but  occasional  protrusions  and  landslips,  we  find 
some  difficulty  in  tracing  their  order  of  succession. 

Near  the  base  of  the  slope,  where  the  soil  has  been 
undermined  and  the  rock  laid  bare  by  the  waves,  there 
occur  beds  of  a  bituminous  black  shale,  —  resembling  the 
dark  shales  so  common  in  the  Coal  Measures,  —  that  seem 
to  be  of  fresh  water  or  estuary  origin.  Their  fossils,  though 
numerous,  are  ill  preserved ;  but  we  detect  in  them  scales 
and  plates  of  fishes,  at  least  two  species  of  minute  bivalves, 
one  of  which  very  much  resembles  a  Cyclas ;  and  in  some 
of  the  fragments,  shells  of  Cypris  lie  embedded  in  consider- 
able abundance.  After  all  that  has  been  said  and  written 
by  way  of  accounting  for  those  alternations  of  lacustrine 
with  marine  remains,  which  are  of  such  frequent  occurrence 
in  the  various  formations,  secondary  and  tertiary,  from  the 
Coal  Measures  downwards,  it  does  seem  strange  enough 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.  87 

that  the  estuary,  or  fresh-water  lake,  should  so  often  in  the 
old  geologic  periods  have  changed  places  with  the  sea.  It 
is  comparatively  easy  to  conceive  that  the  inner  Hebrides 
should  have  once  existed  as  a  broad  ocean  sound,  bounded 
on  one  or  either  side  by  Oolitic  islands,  from  which  streams 
descended,  sweeping  with  them,  to  the  marine  depths,  pro- 
ductions, animal  and  vegetable,  of  the  land.  But  it  is  less 
easy  to  C9nceive,  that  in  that  sound,  the  area  covered  by 
the  ocean  one  year  should  have  been  covered  by  a  fresh- 
water lake  in  perhaps  the  next,  and  then  by  the  ocean  again 
a  few  years  after.  And  yet  among  the  Oolitic  deposits  of 
the  Hebrides  evidence  seems  to  exist  that  changes  of  this 
nature  actually  took  place.  I  am  not  inclined  to  found 
much  on  the  apparently  fresh-water  character  of  the  bitu- 
minous shales  of  Eigg;  —  the  embedded  fossils  are  all  too 
obscure  to  be  admitted  in  evidence ;  but  there  can  exist  no 
doubt  that  fresh  water,  or  at  least  estuary  formations,  do 
occur  among  the  marine  Oolites  of  the  Hebrides.  Sir  R. 
Murchison,  one  of  the  most  cautious,  as  he  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  distinguished,  of  living  geologists,  found  in  a 
northern  district  of  Skye,  in  1826,  a  deposit  containing 
Cyclas,  Paludina,  Neritina,  —  all  shells  of  unequivocally 
fresh-water  origin, —  which  must  have  been  formed,  he  con- 
cludes, in  either  a  lake  or  estuary.  What  had  been  sea  at 
one  period  had  been  estuary  or  lake  at  another.  In  evciy 
case,  however,  in  which  these  intercalated  deposits  are 
restricted  to  single  strata  of  no  great  thickness,  it  is  per- 
haps safer  to  refer  their  formation  to  the  agency  of  tem- 
porary land-floods,  than  to  that  of  violent  changes  of  level, 
now  elevating  and  now  depressing  the  surface.  There 
occur,  for  instance,  among  the  rnai'ine  Oolites  of  Bror.i,  — 
the  discovery  of  Mr.  Robertson,  of  Inverugie,  —  two  strata 
containing  fresh-water  fossils  in  abundance;  but  the  one 
stratum  is  little  more  than  an  inch  in  thickness,  —  the  other 


88  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

little  more  than  a  foot;  and  it  seems  considerably  more 
probable,  that  such  deposits  should  have  owed  their  exist- 
ence to  extraordinary  land-floods,  like  those  which  in  1829 
devastated  the  province  of  Moray,  and  covered  over  whole 
miles  of  marine  beach  with  the  spoils  of  land  and  river, 
than  that  a  sea-bottom  should  have  been  elevated  for  their 
production,  into  a  fresh-water  lake,  and  then  let  down  into 
a  sea-bottom  again.  We  find  it  recorded  in  the  "Shep- 
herd's Calendar,"  that  after  the  thaw  which  followed  the 
great  snow-storm  of  1794,  there  were  found  on  a  part  of  the 
sands  of  the  Solway  Frith  known  as  the  Beds  of  Esk, 
where  the  tide  disgorges  much  of  what  is  thrown  into  it  by 
the  rivers,  "  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty  sheep, 
nine  black  cattle,  three  horses,  two  men,  one  woman,  forty- 
five  dogs,  and  one  hundred  and  eighty  hares,  beside  a  num- 
ber of  meaner  animals."  A  similar  storm  in  an  earlier 
time,  with  a  soft  sea-bottom  prepared  to  receive  and  retain 
its  spoils,  would  have  formed  a  fresh-water  stratum  interca- 
lated in  a  marine  deposit. 

Rounding  the  promontory,  we  lose  sight  of  the  Bay  of 
Laig,  and  find  the  narrow  front  of  the  island  that  now  pre- 
sents itself  exhibiting  the  appearance  of  a  huge  bastion. 
The  green  talus  slopes  upwards,  as  its  basement,  for  full 
three  hundred  feet;  and  a  noble  wall  of  perpendicular  rock, 
that  towers  over  and  beyond  for  at  least  four  hundred  feet 
more,  forms  the  rampart.  Save  towards  the  sea,  the  view 
is  of  but  limited  extent ;  we  see  it  restricted,  on  the  land- 
ward side,  to  the  bold  face  of  the  bastion ;  and  in  a  narrow 
and  broken  dell  that  runs  nearly  parallel  to  the  shore  for  a 
few  hundred  yards  between  the  top  of  the  talus  and  the 
base  of  the  rampart,— a  true  covered  way, — we  see  but 
the  rampart  alone.  But  the  dizzy  front  of  black  basalt, 
dark  as  night,  save  where  a  broad  belt  of  light-colored 
sandstone  traverses  it  in  an  angular  direction,  like  a  white 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  80 

sash  thrown  across  a  funeral  robe, —  the  fantastic  peaks  and 
turrets  in  which  the  rock  terminates  atop, —  the  masses  of 
broken  ruins,  roughened  with  moss  and  lichen,  that  have 
fallen  from  above,  and  lie  scattered  at  its  base, —  the  ex- 
treme loneliness  of  the  place,  for  we  have  left  behind  us 
every  trace  of  the  human  family,  —  and  the  expanse  of  sol- 
itary sea  which  it  commands,  —  all  conspire  to  render  the 
scene  a  profoundly  imposing  one.  It  is  one  of  those  scenes 
in  which  a  man  feels  that  he  is  little,  and  that  nature  is 
great.  There  is  no  precipice  in  the  island  in  which  the 
puffin  so  delights  to  build  as  among  the  dark  pinnacles 
overhead,  or  around  which  the  silence  is  so  frequently 
broken  by  the  harsh  scream  of  the  eagle.  The  sun  had 
got  far  adown  the  sky  ere  we  had  reached  the  covered 
way  at  the  base  of  the  rock.  All  lay  dark  below ;  and  the 
red  light  atop,  half  absorbed  by  the  dingy  hues  of  the 
stone,  shone  with  a  gleam  so  faint  and  melancholy,  that  it 
served  but  to  deepen  the  effect  of  the  shadows. 

The  puffin,  a  comparatively  rare  bird  in  the  inner  Heb- 
rides, builds,  I  was  told,  in  great  numbers  in  the  continuous 
line  of  precipice  which,  after  sweeping  for  a  full  mile  round 
the  Bay  of  Laig,  forms  the  pinnacled  rampart  here,  and 
then,  turning  another  angle  of  the  island,  runs  on  parallel 
to  the  coast  for  about  six  miles  more.  In  former  times  the 
puffin  furnished  the  islanders,  as  in  St.  Kilda,  with  a  staple 
article  of  food,  in  those  hungry  months  of  summer  in  which 
the  stores  of  the  old  crop  had  begun  to  fail,  and  the  new 
crop  had  not  yet  ripened  ;  and  the  people  of  Eigg,  taught 
by  their  necessities,  were  bold  cragsmen.  But  men  do  not 
peril  life  and  limb  for  the  mere  sake  of  a  meal,  save  when 
they  cannot  help  it ;  and  the  introduction  of  the  potato  has 
done  much  to  put  out  the  practice  of  climbing  for  the  bird, 
except  among  a  few  young  lads,  who  find  excitement 
enough  in  the  work  to  pursue  it  for  its  own  sake,  as  an 

8* 


90         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

amusement.  I  found  among  the  islanders  what  was  said  to 
be  a  piece  of  the  natural  history  of  the  puffin,  sufficiently 
apocryphal  to  remind  one  of  the  famous  passage  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  barnacle,  which  traced  the  lineage  of  the  bird 
to  one  of  the  pedunculated  cirripedes,  and  the  lineage  of 
the  cirripede  to  a  log  of  wood.  The  puffin  feeds  its  young, 
say  the  islanders,  on  an  oily  scum  of  the  sea,  which  renders 
it  such  an  unwieldy  mass  of  fat,  that  about  the  time  when 
it  should  be  beginning  to  fly,  it  becomes  unable  to  get  out 
of  its  hole.  The  parent  bird,  not  in  the  least  puzzled,  how- 
ever, treats  the  case  medicinally,  and,  —  like  mothers  of 
another  two-legged  genus,  who,  when  their  daughters  get 
over  stout,  put  them  through  a  course  of  reducing  acids  to 
bring  them  down,  —  feeds  it  on  sorrel  leaves  for  several 
days  together,  till,  like  a  boxer  under  training,  it  gets 
thinned  to  the  proper  weight,  and  becomes  able,  not  only 
to  get  out  of  its  cell,  but  also  to  employ  its  wings. 

We  pass  through  the  hollow,  and,  reaching  the  farther 
edge  of  the  bastion,  towards  the  east,  see  a  new  range  of 
prospect  opening  before  us.  There  is  first  a  long  unbroken 
wall  of  precipice,  —  a  continuation  of  the  tall  rampart  over- 
head, —  relieved  along  its  irregular  upper  line  by  the  blue 
sky.  We  mark  the  talus  widening  at  its  base,  and  expand- 
ing, as  on  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Laig,  into  an  irregular 
grassy  platform,  .that,  sinking  midway  into  a  ditch-like  hol- 
low, rises  again  towards  the  sea,  and  presents  to  the  waves 
a  perpendicular  precipice  of  redstone.  The  sinking  sun 
shone  brightly  this  evening;  and  the  warm  hues  of  the 
precipice,  which  bears  the  name  of  Ri^Stoir,  —  the  Red 
Head,— strikingly  contrasted  with  the  pale  and  dark  tints 
of  the  alternating  basalts  and  sandstones  in  the  taller  cliff 
behind.  The  ditch-like  hollow,  which  seems  to  indicate  the 
line  of  a  fault,  cuts  of  this  red  headland  from  all  the  other 
rocks  of  the  island,  from  which  it  appears  to  differ  as  con- 


A    SUMMER   KAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  91 

siderably  in  texture  as  in  hue.  It  consists  mainly  of  thick 
beds  of  a  pale  red  stone,  which  M'Culloch  regarded  as  a 
trap,  and  which,  intercalated  with  here  and  there  a  thin 
band  of  shale,  and  presenting  not  a  few  of  the  mineralogi. 
cal  appearances  of  what  geologists  of  the  school  of  the  lato 
Mr.  Cunningham  term  Primary  Old  Red  Sandstone,  in 
some  cases  has  been  laid  down  as  a  deposit  of  Old  Red 
proper,  abutting  in  the  line  of  a  fault  on  the  neighboring 
Oolites  and  basalts.  In  the  geological  map  which  I  carried 
with  me,  —  not  one  of  high  authority  however,  —  I  found 
it  actually  colored  as  a  patch  of  this  ancient  system.  The 
Old  Red  Sandstone  is  largely  developed  in  the  neighboring 
island  of  Rum,  in  the  line  of  which  the  JRu-Stoir  seems  t<s, 
have  a  more  direct  bearing  than  any  of  the  other  deposits 
of  Eigg ;  and  yet  the  conclusion  regarding  this  red  head- 
land merely  adds,  one  proof  more  to  the  many  furuished 
already,  of  the  inadequacy  of  mineralogical  testimony, 
when  taken  in  evidence  regarding  the  eras  of  the  geolo- 
gist. The  hard  red  beds  of  Mu-Stoir  belong,  as  I  was 
fortunate  enough  this  evening  to  ascertain,  not  to  the  ages 
of  the  Coccosteus  and  Pterichthys,  but  to  the  far  later  ages 
of  the  Plesiosaurus  and  the  fossil  crocodile.  I  found  them 
associated  with  moi'e  reptilian  remains,  of  a  character  more 
unequivocal  than  have  been  yet  exhibited  by  any  other 
deposit  in  Scotland. 

"What  first  strikes  the  eye,  in  approaching  the  Ru-Stoir 
from  the  west,  is  the  columnar  character  of  the  stone.  The 
precipices  rise  immediately  over  the  sea,  in  rude  colonnades 
of  from  thirty  to  fifty  feet  in  height;  single  pillars,  that 
have  fallen  from  their  places  in  the  line,  and  exhibit  a 
tenacity  rare  among  the  trap-rocks, — for  they  occur  in 
unbroken  lengths  of  from  ten  to  twelve  feet,  —  lie  scat- 
tered below;  and  in  several  places  where  the  waves  have 
joined  issue  with  the  precipices  in  the  line  on  which  the 


92  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

base  of  the  columns  rest,  and  swept  away  the  supporting 
foundation,  the  colonnades  open  into  roomy  caverns,  that 
resound  to  the  dash  of  the  sea.  Wherever  the  spray  lashes, 
the  pale  red  hue  of  the  stone  prevails,  and  the  angles  of  the 
polygonal  shafts  are  rounded ;  while  higher  up  all  is  sharp- 
edged,  and  the  unweathered  surface  is  covered  by  a  gray 
coat  of  lichens.  The  tenacity  of  the  prostrate  columns  first 
drew  my  attention.  The  builder  scant  of  materials  Avould 
have  experienced  no  difficulty  in  finding  among  them  suffi- 
cient lintels  for  apertures  from  eight  to  twelve  feet  in 
width.  I  was  next  struck  with  the  peculiar  composition  of 
the  stone ;  it  much  rather  resembles  an  altered  sandstone, 
in  at  least  the  weathered  specimens,  than  a  trap,  and  yet 
there  seemed  nothing  to  indicate  that  it  was  an  Old  Red 
Sandstone.  Its  columnar  structure  bore  evidence  to  the 
action  of  great  heat;  and  its  pale  red  color  was  exactly 
that  which  the  Oolitic  sandstones  of  the  island,  with  their 
slight  ochreous  tinge,  would  assume  in  a  common  fire. 
And  so  I  set  myself  to  look  for  fossils.  In  the  columnar 
stone  itself  I  expected  none,  as  none  occur  in  vast  beds  of 
the  unaltered  sandstones,  out  of  some  one  of  which  I  sup- 
posed it  might  possibly  have  been  formed ;  and  none  I 
found:  but  in  a  rolled  block  of  altered  shale  of  a  much 
deeper  red  than  the  general  mass,  and  much  more  resem- 
bling Old  Red  Sandstone,  I  succeeded  in  detecting  several 
shells,  identical  with  those  of  the  deposit  of  blue  clay  de- 
scribed in  a  former  chapter.  There  occurred  in  it  the 
small  univalve  resembling  a  Trochus,  together  with  the  ob- 
long bivalve,  somewhat  like  a  Tellina ;  and,  spread  thickly 
throughout  the  block,  lay  fragments  of  coprolitic  matter, 
and  the  scales  and  teeth  of  fishes.  Night  was  coming  on, 

O  O  ' 

and  the  tide  had  risen  on  the  beach ;  but  I  hammered  lusti- 
ly, and  laid  open  in  the  dark  red  shale  a  vertebral  joint,  a 
rib,  and  a  parallelogramical  fragment  of  solid  bone,  none 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  93 

of  which  could  have  belonged  to  any  fish.  It  was  an  inter- 
esting moment  for  the  curtain  to  drop  over  the  promontory 
of  Ru-Stoir;  I  had  thus  already  found  in  connection  with 
it  well  nigh  as  many  reptilian  remains  as  had  been  found  in 
all  Scotland  before, — for  there  could  exist  no  doubt  that 
the  bones  I  laid  open  were  such ;  and  still  more  interesting 
discoveries  promised  to  await  the  coming  morning,  and  a 
less  hasty  survey.  We  found  a  hospitable  meal  awaiting  us 
at  a  picturesque  old  two-story  house,  with,  what  is  rare  in 
the  island,  a  clump  of  trees  beside  it,  which  rises  on  the 
northern  angle  of  the  Oolitic  meniscus ;  and  after  our  day's 
hard  work  in  the  fresh  sea-air,  we  did  ample  justice  to  the 
viands.  Dark  night  had  long  set  in  ere  we  reached  our 
vessel. 

Next  day  was  Saturday ;  and  it  behooved  my  friend,  the 
minister,  —  as  scrupulously  careful  in  his  pulpit  prepara- 
tions for  the  islanders  of  Eigg  as  if  his  congregation  were 
an  Edinburgh  one,  —  to  remain  on  board,  and  study  his 
discourse  for  the  morrow.  I  found,  however,  no  unmeet 
companion  for  my  excursion  in  his  trusty  mate  John  Stew- 
art. John  had  not  very  much  English,  and  I  had  no 
Gaelic ;  but  we  contrived  to  understand  one  another  won- 
derfully well ;  and  ere  evening  I  had  taught  him  to  be 
quite  as  expei-t  in  hunting  dead  crocodiles  as  myself.  We 
reached  the  Ru-Stoir,  and  set  hard  to  work  with  hammer 
and  chisel.  The  fragments  of  red  shale  were  strewed 
thickly  along  the  shore  for  at  least  three  quarters  of  a  mile ; 
wherever  the  red  columnar  rock  appeared,  there  lay  the 
shale,  in  water-worn  blocks,  more  or  less  indurated ;  but 
the  beach  was  covered  over  with  shingle  and  detached 
masses  of  rock,  and  we  could  nowhere  find  it  in  situ.  A 
winter  storm  powerful  enough  to  wash  the  beach  bare 
might  do  much  to  assist  the  explorer.  There  is  a  piece  of 
shore  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Scotland,  on  which  for  years 


94  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY;    OR, 

together  I  used  to  pick  up  nodular  masses  of  lime  containing 
fish  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone ;  but  nowhere  in  the  neigh- 
borhood could  I  find  the  ichthyolite  bed  in  which  they  had 
originally  formed.  The  storm  of  a  single  night  swept  the 
beach;  and  in  the  morning  the  ichthyolites  lay  revealed  in 
situ  under  a  stratum  of  shingle  which  I  had  a  hundred  times 
examined,  but  which,  though  scarce  a  foot  in  thickness,  had 
concealed  from  me  the  ichthyolite  bed  for  five  twelvemonths 
together ! 

Wherever  the  altered  shale  of  Ru-Stoir  has  been  thrown 
high  on  the  beach,  and  exposed  to  the  influences  of  the  wea- 
ther, we  find  it  fretted  over  with  minute  organisms,  mostly 
the  scales,  plates,  bones,  and  teeth  of  fishes.  The  organisms, 
as  is  frequently  the  case,  seem  indestructible,  while  the  hard 
matrix  in  which  they  are  embedded  has  weathered  from 
around  them.  Some  of  the  scales  present  the  rhomboidal 
outline,  and  closely  resemble  those  of  the  Lepidotus  Minor 
of  the  Weald ;  others  approximate  in  shape  to  an  isosceles 
triangle.  The  teeth  are  of  various  forms :  some  of  them, 
evidently  palatal,  are^mere  blunted  protuberances  glitter- 
ing with  enamel,  —  some  of  them  present  the  usual  slim, 
thorn-like  type  common  in  the  teeth  of  the  existing  fish  of 
our  coasts,  —  some  again  are  squat  and  angular,  and  rest  on 
rectilinear  bases,  prolonged  considerably  on  each  side  of  the 
body  of  the  tooth,  like  the  rim  of  a  hat  or  the  flat  head  of 
a  scupper  nail.  Of  the  occipital  plates,  some  present  a 
smooth  enamelled  surface,  while  some  are  thickly  tubemi- 
,lated,  —  each  tubercle  bearing  a  minute  depression  in  its 
apex,  like  a  crater  on  the  summit  of  a  rounded  hill.  We 
find  reptilian  bones  in  abundance,  —  a  thing  new  to  Scotch 
geology,  —  and  in  a  state  of  keeping  peculiarly  fine.  They 
not  a  little  puzzled  John  Stewart :  he  could  not  resist  the 
evidence  of  his  senses  :  they  were  bones,  he  said,  real  bones, 
—  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  that :  there  were  the  joints  of 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  95 

a  backbone,  with  the  hole  the  brain-marrow  had  passed 
through ;  and  there  were  shank-bones  and  ribs,  and  fishes' 
teeth ;  but  how,  he  wondered,  had  they  all  got  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  hard  red  stones  ?  He  had  seen  what  was  called 
wood,  he  said,  dug  out  of  the  side  of  the  Scuir,  without 
being  quite  certain  whether  it  was  wood  or  no ;  but  there 
could  be  no  uncertainty  here.  I  laid  open  numerous  verte- 
bra of  various  forms, — some  with  long  spinous  processes 
rising  over  the  body  or  centrum  of  the  bone,  —  which  I 
found  in  every  instance,  unlike  that  of  the  Ichthyosau- 
rus, only  moderately  concave  on  the  articulating  faces; 
in  others  the  spinous  process  seemed  altogether  wanting. 
Only  two  of  the  number  bore  any  mark  of  the  suture  which 
unites,  in  most  reptiles,  the  annular  process  to  the  centrum  ; 
in  the  others  both  centrum  and  process  seemed  anchylosed, 
as  in  quadrupeds,  into  one  bone ;  and  there  remained  no  scar 
to  show  that  the  suture  had  ever  existed.  In  some  specimens 
the  ribs  seem  to  have  been  articulated  to  the  sides  of  the  cen- 
trum ;  in  others  there  is  a  transverse  process,  but  no  marks 
of  articulation.  Some  of  the  vertebrae  are  evidently  dor- 
sal, some  cervical,  one  apparently  caudal ;  and  almost  all 
agree  in  showing  in  front  two  little  eyelets,  to  which  the 
great  descending  artery  seems  to  have  sent  out  blood-vessels 
in  pairs.  The  more  entire  ribs  I  was  lucky  enough  to  dis- 
inter have,  as  in  those  of  crocodileans,  double  heads ;  and  a 
part  of  a  fibula,  about  four  inches  in  length,  seems  also  to 
belong  to  this  ancient  family.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
other  bones  are  evidently  Plesiosaurian.  I  found  the  head 
of  the  flat  humerus  so  characteristic  of  the  extinct  order  to 
which  the  Plesiosaurus  has  been  assigned,  and  two  digital 
bones  of  the  paddle,  that,  from  their  comparatively  slender 
and  slightly  curved  form,  so  unlike  the  digitals  of  its  cogener 
the  Ichthyosaurus,  could  have  belonged  evidently  to  no 
other  reptile.  I  observed,  too,  in  the  slightly  curved  arti- 


96  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

dilations  of  not  a  few  of  the  vertebrae,  the  gentle  convexity 
in  the  concave  centre,  which,  if  not  peculiar  to  the  Plesio- 
saurus,  is  at  least  held  to  distinguish  it  from  most  of  its  con- 
temporaries. Among  the  various  nondescript  organisms  of 
the  shale,  I  laid  open  a  smooth  angular  bone,  hollowed 
something  like  a  grocer's  scoop;  a  three-pronged  caltrop- 
looking  bone,  that  seems  to  have  formed  part  of  a  pelvic 
arch;  another  angular  bone,  much  massier  than  the  first, 
regarding  the  probable  position  of  which  I  could  not  form 
a  conjecture,  but  which  some  of  my  geological  friends  deem 
cerebral ;  an  extremely  dense  bone,  imperfect  at  each  end, 
which  presents  the  appearance  of  a  cylinder  slightly  flat- 
tened ;  and  various  curious  fragments,  which,  with  what 
our  Scotch  museums  have  not  yet  acquired,  —  entire  rep- 
tilian fossils  for  the  purposes  of  comparison,  —  might,  I 
doubt  not,  be  easily  assigned  to  their  proper  places.  It  was 
in  vain  that,  leaving  John  to  collect  the  scattered  pieces  of 
shale  in  which  the  bones  occurred,  I  set  myself  again  and 
again  to  discover  the  bed  from  which  they  had  been  de- 
tached. The  tide  had  fallen,  and  a  range  of  skerries  lay 
temptingly  off,  scarce  a  hundred  yards  from  the  water's 
edge :  the  shale  beds  might  be  among  them,  with  Plesio- 
sauri  and  crocodiles  stretching  entire;  and  fain  Avould  I 
have  swum  off  to  them,  as  I  had  done  oftener  than  once 
elsewhere,  with  my  hammer  in  my  teeth,  and  with  shirt 
and  drawers  in  my  hat ;  but  a  tall  brown  forest  of  kelp  and 
tangle  in  which  even  a  seal  might  drown,  rose  thick  and 
perilous  round  both  shore  and  skerries ;  a  slight  swell  was 
felting  the  long  fronds  together ;  and  I  deemed  it  better,  on 
the  whole,  that  the  discoveries  I  had  already  made  should 
be  recorded,  than  that  they  should  be  lost  to  geology,  may- 
hap for  a  whole  age,  in  the  attempt  to  extend  them. 

The  water,  beautifully  transparent,  permitted  the  eye  to 
penetrate  into  its  green  depths  for  many  fathoms  around, 


A   SUMMER  KAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  97 

though  every  object  presented,  through  the  agitated  sur- 
face, an  uncertain  and  fluctuating  outline.  I  could  see, 
however,  the  pink-colored  urchin  warping  himself  up,  by  his 
many  cables,  along  the  steep  rock-sides;  the  green  crab 
stalking  along  the  gravelly  bottom ;  a  scull  of  small  rock- 
cod  darting  hither  and  thither  among  the  tangle-roots ;  and 
a  few  large  medusae  slowly  flapping  their  continuous  fins  of 
gelatine  in  the  opener  spaces,  a  few  inches  under  the  surface. 
Many  curious  families  had  their  representatives  within  the 
patch  of  sea  which  the  eye  commanded ;  but  the  strange 
creatures  that  had  once  inhabited  it  by  thousands,  and 
whose  bones  still  lay  sepulchred  on  its  shores,  had  none. 
How  strange,  that  the  identical  sea  heaving  around  stack 
and  skerry  in  this  remote  corner  of  the  Hebrides  should 
have  once  been  thronged  by  reptile  shapes  more  strange 
than  poet  ever  imagined,  —  dragons,  gorgons  and  chimeras ! 
Perhaps  of  all  the  extinct  reptiles,  the  Plesiosaurus  was  the 
most  extraordinary.  An  English  geologist  has  described  it, 
grotesquely  enough,  and  yet  most  happily,  as  a  snake 
threaded  through  a  tortoise.  And  here  on  this  very  spot, 
must  these  monstrous  dragons  have  disported  and  fed ;  here 
must  they  have  raised  their  little  reptile  heads  and  long 
swan-like  necks  over  the  surface,  to  watch  an  antagonist  or 
select  a  victim ;  here  must  they  have  warred  and  wedded, 
and  pursued  all  the  various  instincts  of  their  unknown 
natures.  A  strange  story,  surely,  considering  it  is  a  true 
one  !  I  may  mention  in  the  passing,  that  some  of  the  frag- 
ments of  the  shale  in  which  the  remains  are  embedded  have 
been  baked  by  the  intense  heat  into  an  exceedingly  hard, 
dark-colored  stone,  somewhat  resembling  basalt.  I  must 
add  further,  that  I  by  no  means  determine  the  rock  with 
which  we  find  it  associated  to  be  in  reality  an  altered  sand- 
stone. Such  is  the  appearance  which  it  presents  where 
weathered ;  but  its  general  aspect  is  that  of  a  porphyritic 
9 


98  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

trap.  Be  it  what  it  may,  the  fact  is  not  at  all  affected,  that 
the  shores,  wherever  it  occurs  on  this  tract  of  insular  coast, 
are  strewed  with  reptilian  remains  of  the  Oolite. 

The  day  passed  pleasantly  in  the  work  of  exploration  and 
discovery ;  the  sun  had  already  declined  far  in  the  west ; 
and,  bearing  with  us  our  better  fossils,  we  set  out,  on  our 
return,  by  the  opposite  route  to  that  along  the  Bay  of  Laig, 
which  we  had  now  thrice  walked  over.  The  grassy  talus  so 
often  mentioned  continues  to  run  on  the  eastern  side  of  the 
island  for  about  six  miles,  between  the  sea  and  the  inacces- 
sible rampart  of  precipice  behind.  It  varies  in  breadth 
from  about  two  to  four  hundred  yards;  the  rampart  rises 
over  it  from  three  to  five  hundred  feet ;  and  a  noble  expanse 
of  sea,  closed  in  the  distance  by  a  still  nobler  curtain  of  blue 
hills,  spreads  away  from  its  base :  and  it  was  along  this 
grassy  talus  that  our  homeward  road  lay.  Let  the  Edin- 
burgh reader  imagine  the  fine  walk  under  Salisbury  Crags 
lengthened  some  twenty  times, — the  line  of  precipices 
above  heightened  some  five  or  six  tunes, — the  gravelly 
slope  at  the  base  not  much  increased  in  altitude,  but  devel- 
oped transversely  into  a  green  undulating  belt  of  hilly  pas- 
ture, with  here  and  there  a  sunny  slope  level  enough  for  the 
plough,  and  here  and  there  a  rough  wilderness  of  detached 
crags  and  broken  banks;  let  him  further  imagine  the  sea 
sweeping  around  the  base  of  this  talus,  with  the  nearest 
opposite  land — bold,  bare  and  undulating  atop  —  some  six 
or  eight  miles  distant ;  and  he  will  have  no  very  inadequate 
idea  of  the  peculiar  and  striking  scenery  through  which, 
this  evening,  our  homeward  route  lay.  I  have  scarce  ever- 
walked  over  a  more  solitary  tract.  The  sea  shuts  it  in  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  rampart  of  rocks  on  the  other ;  there 
occurs  along  its  entire  length  no  other  human  dwelling  than 
a  lonely  summer  shieling;  for  full  one-half  the  way  we  saw 
no  trace  of  man ;  and  the  wildness  of  the  few  cattle  which 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE    HEBRIDES.  99 

we  occasionally  startled  in  the  hollows  showed  us  that  man 
was  no  very  frequent  visitor  among  them.  About  half  an 
hour  before  sunset  we  reached  the  midway  shieling. 

Rarely  have  I  seen  a  more  interesting  spot,  or  one  that, 
from  its  utter  loneliness,  so  impressed  the  imagination.  The 
shieling,  a  rude  low-roofed  erection  of  turf  and  stone,  with  a 
door  in  the  centre  some  five  feet  in  height  or  so,  but  with 
no  window,  rose  on  the  grassy  slope  immediately  in  front  of 
the  vast  continuous  rampart.  A  slim  pillar  of  smoke  ascends 
from  the  roof,  in  the  calm,  faint  and  blue  within  the  shadow 
of  the  precipice,  but  it  caught  the  sunlight  in  its  ascent,  and 
blushed,  ere  it  melted  into  the  ether,  a  ruddy  brown.  A 
streamlet  came  pouring  from  above  in  a  long  white  thread, 
that  maintained  its  continuity  unbroken  for  at  least  two- 
thirds  of  the  way ;  and  then,  untwisting  into  a  shower  of 
detached  drops,  that  pattered  loud  and  vehemently  in  a 
rocky  recess,  it  again  gathered  itself  up  into  a  lively  little 
stream,  and,  sweeping  past  the  shieling,  expanded  in  front 
into  a  circular  pond,  at  which  a  few  milch  cows  were 
leisurely  slaking  their  thirst.  The  whole  grassy  talus,  with 
a  strip  mayhap  a  hundred  yards  wide,  of  deep  green  sea,  lay 
within  the  shadow  of  the  tall  rampart ;  but  the  red  light 
fell,  for  many  a  mile  beyond,  on  the  glassy  surface ;  and  the 
distant  Cuchullin  Hills,  so  dark  at  other  times,  had  all  their 
prominent  slopes  and  jutting  precipices  tipped  with  bronze ; 
while  here  and  there  a  mist  streak,  converted  into  bright 
flame,  sti'etched  along  their  peaks  or  rested  on  their  sides. 
Save  the  lonely  shieling,  not  a  human  dwelling  was  in  sight. 
An  island  girl  of  eighteen,  more  than  merely  good-looking, 
though  much  embrowned  by  the  sun,  had  come  to  the  door 
to  see  who  the  unwonted  visitors  might  be,  and  recognized 
in  John  Stewart  an  old  acquaintance.  John  informed  her 
in  her  own  language  that  I  was  Mr.  Swanson's  sworn  friend, 
and  not  a  Moderate,  but  one  of  their  own  people,  and  that  I 


100        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

had  fasted  all  day,  and  had  come  for  a  drink  of  milk.  The 
name  of  her  minister  proved  a  strongly  recommendatory 
one :  I  have  not  yet  seen  the  true  Celtic  interjection  of  wel- 
come, —  the  kindly  "  O  o  o,"  —  attempted  on  paper ;  but  I 
had  a  very  agreeable  specimen  of  it  on  this  occasion,  viva 
voce.  And  as  she  set  herself  to  prepare  for  us  a  rich  bowl 
of  mingled  milk  and  cream,  John  and  I  entered  the  shieling. 
There  was  a  turf  fire  at  the  one  end,  at  which  there  sat  two 
little  girls,  engaged  in  keeping  up  the  blaze  under  a  large 
pot,  but  sadly  diverted  from  their  work  by  our  entrance ; 
while  the  other  end  was  occupied  by  a  bed  of  dry  straw, 
spread  on  the  floor  from  wall  to  wall,  and  fenced  off  at  the 
foot  by  a  line  of  stones.  The  middle  space  was  occupied  by 
the  utensils  and  produce  of  the  dairy,  —  flat  wooden  vessels 
of  milk,  a  butter-churn,  and  a  tub  half-filled  with  curd; 
while  a  few  cheeses,  soft  from  the  press,  lay  on  a  shelf 
above.  The  little  girls  were  but  occasional  visitors,  who 
had  come,  out  of  a  juvenile  frolic,  to  pass  the  night  in  the 
place ;  but  I  was  informed  by  John  that  the  shieling  had 
two  other  inmates,  young  women,  like  the  one  so  hospitably 
engaged  in  our  behalf,  who  were  out  at  the  milking,  and 
that  they  lived  here  all  alone  for  several  months  every 
year,  when  the  pasturage  was  at  its  best,  employed  in 
making  butter  and  cheese  for  their  master,  worthy  Mr. 
M'Donald  of  Keill.  They  must  often  feel  lonely  when  night 
has  closed  darkly  over  mountain  and  sea,  or  in  those  dreary 
days  of  mist  and  rain  so  common  in  the  Hebrides,  when 
nought  rnay  be  seen  save  the  few  shapeless  crags  that  stud 
the  nearer  hillocks  around  them,  and  nought  heard  save  the 
moaning  of  the  wind  in  the  precipices  above,  or  the  mea- 
sured dash  of  the  wave  on  the  wild  beach  below.  And  yet 
they  would  do  ill  to  exchange  their  solitary  life  and  rude 
shieling  for  the  village  dwellings  and  gregarious  habits  of 
the  females  who  ply  their  rural  labors  in  bands  among  the 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.         101 

rich  fields  of  the  Lowlands,  or  for  the  unwholesome  back- 
room and  weary  task-work  of  the  city  seamstress.  The  sun- 
light was  fading  from  the  higher  hill-tops  of  Skye  and 
Glenelg  as  we  bade  farewell  to  the  lonely  shieling  and  the 
hospitable  island  girl. 

The  evening  deepened  as  we  hurried  southwards  along 
the  scarce  visible  pathway,  or  paused  for  a  few  seconds  to 
examine  some  shattered  block,  bulky  as  a  Highland  cottage, 
that  had  fallen  from  the  precipice  above.  Now  that  the 
whole  landscape  lay  equally  in  shadow,  one  of  the  more  pic- 
turesque peculiarities  of  the  continuous  rampart  came  out 
more  strongly  as  a  feature  of  the  scene  than  when  a  strip  of 
shade  rested  along  the  face  of  the  rock,  imparting  to  it  a 
retiring  character,  and  all  was  sunshine  beyond.  A  thick 
bed  of  white  sandstone,  as  continuous  as  the  rampart  itself, 
runs  nearly  horizontally  about  midway  in  the  precipice  for 
mile  after  mile,  and,  standing  out  in  strong  contrast  with 
the  dark-colored  trap  above  and  below,  reminds  one  of  a 
belt  of  white  hewn  work  in  a  basalt  house  front,  or  rather, 
—  for  there  occurs  above  a  second  continuous  strip,  of  an 
olive  hue,  the  color  assumed,  on  weathering  by  a  bed  of 
amygdaloid,  —  of  a  piece  of  dingy  old-fashioned  furniture, 
inlaid  with  one  stringed  belt  of  bleached  holly,  and  another 
of  faded  green-wood.  At  some  of  the  more  accessible  points 
I  climbed  to  the  line  of  white  belting,  and  found  it  to  consist 
of  the  same  soft  quartzy  sandstone  that  in  the  Bay  of  Laig 
furnishes  the  musical  sand.  Lower  down  there  occur,  alter- 
nating with  the  trap,  beds  of  shale  and  of  blue  clay,  but 
they  are  lost  mostly  in  the  talus.  Ill  adapted  to  resist  the 
frosts  and  rains  of  winter,  their  exposed  edges  have  moul- 
dered into  a  loose  soil,  now  thickly  covered  over  with  her- 
bage ;  and,  but  for  the  circumstance  that  we  occasionally 
find  them  laid  bare  by  a  water-course,  we  would  scarce  be 
aware  of  their  existence  at  all.  The  shale  exhibits  evcry- 
9* 


102  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY ',   OR, 

where,  as  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  JRu-/Stoir,  faint 
impressions  of  a  minute  shell  resembling  a  Cyclas,  and  ill- 
preserved  fragments  of  fish-scales.  The  blue  clay  I  found 
at  one  spot  where  the  pathway  had  cut  deep  into  the  hill- 
side, richly  charged  with  bivalves  of  the  species  I  had  seen 
so  abundant  in  the  resembling  clay  of  the  Bay  of  Laig ; 
but  the  closing  twilight  prevented  me  from  ascertaining 
whether  it  also  contained  the  characteristic  univalves  of 
the  deposit,  and  whether  its  shells,  —  for  they  seem  identi- 
cal with  those  of  the  altered  shales  of  the  JRu-Stoir, — 
might  not  be  associated,  like  these,  with  reptilian  remains. 
Night  fell  fast,  and  the  streaks  of  mist  that  had  mottled 
the  hills  at  sunset  began  to  spread  gray  over  the  heavens 
in  a  continuous  curtain ;  but  there  was  light  enough  left 
to  show  me  that  the  trap  became  more  columnar  as  we 
neared  our  journey's  end.  One  especial  jutting  in  the 
rock  presented  in  the  gloom  the  appearance  of  an  ancient 
portico,  with  pediment  and  cornice,  such  as  the  traveller 
sees  on  the  hill-sides  of  Petraea  in  front  of  some  old  tomb ; 
but  it  may  possibly  appear  less  architectural  by  day.  At 
length,  passing  from  under  the  long  line  of  rampart,  just 
as  the  stars  that  had  begun  to  twinkle  over  it  were  disap- 
pearing, one  after  one,  in  the  thickening  vapor,  we  reached 
the  little  bay  of  Kildonan,  and  found  the  boat  waiting  us 
on  the  beach.  My  friend  the  minister,  as  I  entered  the 
cabin,  gathered  up  his  notes  from  the  table,  and  gave 
orders  for  the  tea-kettle ;  and  I  spread  out  before  him  —  a 
happy  man  —  an  array  of  fossils  new  to  Scotch  Geology. 
No  one  not  an  enthusiastic  geologist  or  a  zealous  Roman 
Catholic  can  really  know  how  vast  an  amount  of  interest 
may  attach  to  a  few  old  bones.  Has  the  reader  ever  heard 
how  fossil  relics  once  saved  the  dwelling  of  a  monk,  in  a 
time  of  great  general  calamity,  when  all  his  other  relics 
proved  of  no  avail  Avhatever  ? 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          103 

Thomas  Campbell,  when  asked  for  a  toast  in  a  society 
of  authors,  gave  the  memory  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte ;  sig- 
nificantly adding,  "he  once  hung  a  bookseller."  On  a 
nearly  similar  principle  I  would  be  disposed  to  propose 
among  geologists  a  grateful  bumper  in  honor  of  the  revo- 
lutionary army  that  besieged  Maastricht.  That  city,  some 
seventy-five  or  eighty  years  ago,  had  its  zealous  naturalist 
in  the  person  of  M.  Hoffmann,  a  diligent  excavator  in  the 
quarries  of  St.  Peter's  mountain,  long  celebrated  for  its 
extraordinary  fossils.  Geology,  as  a  science,  had  no  exist- 
ence at  the  time;  but  Hoffmann  was  doing,  in  a  quiet 
way,  all  he  could  to  give  it  a  beginning ;  —  he  was  trans- 
ferring from  the  rock  to  his  cabinet,  shells,  and  corals,  and 
Crustacea,  and  the  teeth  and  scales  of  fishes,  with  now  and 
then  the  vertebrae,  and  now  and  then  the  limb-bone,  of  a 
reptile.  And  as  he  honestly  remunerated  all  the  workmen 
he  employed,  and  did  no  manner  of  harm  to  any  one,  no 
one  heeded  him.  On  one  eventful  morning,  however,  his 
friends  the  quarriers  laid  bare  a  most  extraordinary  fossil, 
—  the  occipital  plates  of  an  enormous  saurian,  with  jaws 
four  and  a  half  feet  long,  bristling  over  with  teeth,  like 
chevcmx  defrise;  and  after  Hoffmann,  who  got  the  block 
in  which  it  lay  embedded,  cut  out  entire,  and  transferred 
to  his  house,  had  spent  week  after  week  in  painfully 
relieving  it  from  the  mass,  all  Maestricht  began  to  speak 
of  it  as  something  really  wonderful.  There  is  a  cathedral 
on  St.  Peter's  mountain,  —  the  mountain  itself  is  church- 
land  ;  and  the  lazy  canon,  awakened  by  the  general  talk, 
laid  claim  to  poor  Hoffmann's  wonderful  fossil  as  his  pro- 
perty. He  was  lord  of  the  manor,  he  said,  and  the  moun- 
tain and  all  that  it  contained  belonged  to  him.  Hoffmann 
defended  his  fossil  as  he  best  could  in  an  expensive  law- 
suit; but  the  judges  found  the  law  clean  against  him;  the 
huge  reptile  head  was  declared  to  be  "  treasure  trove " 


104  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY. 

escheat  to  the  lord  of  the  manor ;  and  Hoffmann,  half  bro- 
ken-hearted, with  but  his  labor  and  the  lawyer's  bills  for 
his  pains,  saw  it  transferred  by  rude  hands  from  its  place 
in  his  museum,  to  the  residence  of  the  grasping  church- 
man. The  huge  fossil  head  experienced  the  fate  of  Dr. 
Chalmer's  two  hundred  churches.  Hoffmann  was  a  phi- 
losopher, however,  and  he  continued  to  observe  and  col- 
lect as  before;  but  he  never  found  such  another  fossil; 
and  at  length,  in  the  midst  of  his  ingenious  labors,  the 
vital  energies  failed  within  him,  and  he  broke  down  and 
died.  The  useless  canon  lived  on.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion broke  out ;  the  republican  army  invested  Maestricht ; 
the  batteries  were  opened ;  and  shot  and  shell  fell  thick 
on  the  devoted  city.  But  in  one  especial  quarter  there 
alighted  neither  shot  nor  shell.  All  was  safe  around  the 
canon's  house.  Ordinary  relics  would  have  availed  him 
nothing  in  the  circumstances,  —  no,  not  "  the  three  kings 
of  Cologne,"  had  he  possessed  the  three  kings  entire,  or 
the  jaw-bones  of  the  "  eleven  thousand  virgins ; "  but 
there  was  virtue  in  the  jaw-bones  of  the  Mosasnurus,  and 
safety  in  their  neighborhood.  The  French  savans,  like  all 
the  other  savans  of  Europe,  had  heard  of  Hoffmann's  fos- 
sil, and  the  French  artillery  had  been  directed  to  play 
wide  of  the  place  where  it  lay.  Maestricht  surrendered ; 
the  fossil  was  found  secreted  in  a  vault,  and  sent  away  to 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes  at  Paris,  maugre  the  canon,  to 
delight  there  the  heart  of  Cuvier;  and  the  French,  gene- 
rously addressing  themselves  to  the  heirs  of  Hoffmann  as 
its  legitimate  owners,  made  over  to  them  a  considerable 
sum  of  money  as  its  price.  They  reversed  the  finding  of 
the  Maestricht  judges ;  and  all  save  the  monks  of  St. 
Peter's  have  acquiesced  in  the  justice  of  the  decision. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

Something  for  Non-geologists  —  Man  Destructive — A  Better  and  Last  Creation 
coming — A  Rainy  Sabbath —  The  Meeting  House — The  Congregation  —  The 
Sermon  in  Gaelic  —  The  Old  Wondrous  Story — The  Drunken  Minister  of 
Eigg  —  Presbyterianism  without  Life  —  Dr.  Johnson's  Account  of  the  Con- 
version of  the  People  of  Rum — Romanism  at  Eigg  —  The  Two  Boys — The 
Freebooter  of  Eig<» —  Voyage  Resumed  —  The  Homeless  Minister — Harbor 
of  Isle  Ornsay  —  Interesting  Gneiss  Deposit  —  A  Norwegian  Keep  —  Gneiss 
at  Knock — Curious  Chemistry  —  Sea-cliffs  beyond  Portsea  —  The  Goblin 
Luidag  —  Scenery  of  Skye. 

I  RECKON  among  my  readers  a  class  of  non-geologists, 
who  think  my  geological  chapters  would  be  less  dull  if  I 
left  out  the  geology;  and  another  class  of  semi-geologists, 
who  say  there  was  decidedly  too  much  geology  in  my  last. 
With  the  present  chapter,  as  there  threatens  to  be  an  utter 
lack  of  science  in  the  earlier  half  of  it,  and  very  little,  if 
any,  in  the  latter  half,  I  trust  both  classes  may  be  in  some 
degree  satisfied.  It  will  bear  reference  to  but  the  existing 
system  of  things,  —  assuredly  not  the  last  of  the  consecu- 
tive creations,  —  and  to  a  species  of  animal  that,  save  in 
the  celebrated  Guadaloupe  specimens,  has  not  yet  been 
found  locked  up  in  stone.  There  have  been  much  of  vio- 
lence and  suffering  in  the  old  immature  stages  of  being,  — 
much,  from  the  era  of  the  Holoptychius,  with  its  sharp 
murderous  teeth  and  strong  armor  of  bone,  down  to  that 
of  the  cannibal  Ichthyosaurus,  that  bears  the  broken 
remains  of  its  own  kind  in  its  bowels,  —  much,  again,  from 
the  times  of  the  crocodile  of  the  Oolite,  down  to  the  times 
of  the  fossil  hyena  and  gigantic  shark  of  the  Tertiary. 
Nor,  I  fear,  have  matters  greatly  improved  in  that  latest- 


106  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

born  creation  in  the  series,  that  recognizes  as  its  delegated 
lord  the  first  tenant  of  earth  accountable  to  his  Maker. 
But  there  is  a  better  and  a  last  creation  coming,  in  which 
man  shall  re-appear,  not  to  oppress  and  devour  his  fellow- 
men,  and  in  which  there  shall  be  no  such  wrongs  perpe- 
trated as  it  is  my  present  purpose  to  record,  —  "new  heav- 
ens and  a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness." 
Well  sung  the  Ayrshire  ploughman,  when  musing  on  the 
great  truth  that  the  present  scene  of  being  "  is  surely  not 
the  last,"  —  a  truth  corroborated  since  his  day  by  the  anal- 
ogies of  a  new  science,  — 

"  The  poor,  oppressed,  honest  man, 

Had  never  sure  been  born, 
Had  not  there  been  some  recompense 
To  comfort  those  that  mourn." 

It  was  Sabbath,  but  the  morning  rose  like  a  hypochon- 
driac wrapped  up  in  his  night-clothes, — gray  in  fog,  and 
sad  with  rain.  The  higher  grounds  of  the  island  lay 
hid  in  clouds,  far  below  the  level  of  the  central  hollow ; 
and  our  whole  prospect  from  the  deck  was  limited  to 
the  nearer  slopes,  dank,  brown,  and  uninhabited,  and  to 
the  rough  black  crags  that  frown  like  sentinels  over  the 
beach.  Now  the  rime  thickened  as  the  rain  pattered 
more  loudly  on  the  deck;  and  even  the  nearer  stacks 
and  precipices  showed  as  unsolid  and  spectral  in  the 
cloud  as  moonlight  shadows  thrown  on  a  ground  of 
vapor;  anon  it  cleared  up  for  a  few  hundred  yards,  as 
the  shower  lightened;  and  then  there  came  in  view, 
partially  at  least,  two  objects  that  spoke  of  man,  —  a 
deserted  boat  harbor,  formed  of  loosely  piled  stone,  at 
the  upper  extremity  of  a  sandy  bay;  and  a  roofless 
dwelling  beside  it,  with  two  ruinous  gables  rising  over 
the  broken  walls.  The  entire  scene  suggested  the  idea 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          107 

of  a  land  with  which  man  had  done  for  ever;  —  the 
vapor-enveloped  rocks,  —  the  waste  of  ebb-uncovered 
sand,  —  the  deserted  harbor,  —  the  ruinous  house,  —  the 
melancholy  rain-fretted  tides  eddying  along  the  strip  of 
brown  tangle  in  the  foreground,  —  and,  dim  over  all,  the 
thick,  slant  lines  of  the  beating  shower !  • —  I  know  not 
that  of  themselves  they  would  have  furnished  materials 
enough  for  a  finished  picture  in  the  style  of  Hogarth's 
"End  of  all  Things;"  but  right  sure  am  I  that  in  the 
hands  of  Bewick  they  would  have  been  grouped  into  a 
tasteful  and  poetic  vignette.  We  set  out  for  church  a 
little  after  eleven,  —  the  minister  encased  in  his  ample- 
skirted  storm-jacket  of  oiled  canvas,  and  protected  atop 
by  a  genuine  sou-wester,  of  which  the  broad  posterior  rim 
sloped  half  a  yard  down  his  back ;  and  I  closely  wrapped 
up  in  my  gray  maud,  which  proved,  however,  a  rather* 
indifferent  protection  against  the  penetrating  powers  of 
a  true  Hebridean  drizzle.  The  building  in  which  the 
congregation  meets  is  a  low  dingy  cottage  of  turf  and 
stone,  situated  nearly  opposite  to  the  manse  windows.  It 
had  been  built  by  my  friend,  previous  to  the  Disruption, 
at  his  own  expense,  for  a  Gaelic  school,  and  it  now  serves 
as  a  place  of  worship  for  the  people. 

We  found  the  congregation  already  gathered,  and  that 
the  very  bad  morning  had  failed  to  lessen  their  numbers. 
There  were  a  few  of  the  male  parishioners  keeping  watch 
at  the  door,  looking  wistfully  out  through  the  fog  and  rain 
for  their  minister  ;  and  at  his  approach  nearly  twenty 
more  came  issuing  from  the  place, — like  carder  bees  from 
their  nest  of  dried  gi-ass  and  moss, — to  gather  round  him, 
and  shake  him  by  the  hand.  The  islanders  of  Eigg  are  an 
active,  middle-sized  race,  with  well-developed  heads,  acute 
intellects,  and  singularly  warm  feelings.  And  on  this 
occasion  at  least  there  could  be  no  possibility  of  mistake 


108        THE  CRUISE  OP  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

respecting  the  feelings  with  which  they  regarded  their 
minister.  Rarely  have  I  seen  human  countenances  so  elo- 
quently vocal  with  veneration  and  love.  The  gospel  message, 
which  my  friend  had  been  the  first  effectually  to  bring  home 
to  their  hearts,  —  the  palpable  feet  of  his  sacrifice  for  the 
sake  of  the  high  principles  which  he  has  taught, — his  own 
kindly  disposition,  —  the  many  services  which  he  has  ren- 
dered them,  for  not  only  has  he  been  the  minister,  but  also 
the  sole  medical  man,  of  the  Small  Isles,  and  the  benefit  of 
his  practice  they  have  enjoyed,  in  every  instance,  without 
fee  or  reward, — his  new  life  of  hardship  and  danger,  main- 
tained for  their  sakes  amid  sinking  health  and  gi-eat  priva- 
tion,— their  frequent  fears  for  his  safety  when  stormy 
nights  close  over  the  sea, — and  they  have  seen  his  little 
vessel  driven  from  her  anchorage,  just  as  the  evening  has 
•fallen,  —  all  these  are  circumstances  that  have  concurred 
in  giving  him  a  strong  hold  on  their  affections. 

The  rude  turf-building  we  found  full  from  end  to  end, 
and  all  a-steam  with  a  particularly  wet  congregation,  some 
of  whom,  neither  very  robust  nor  young,  had  travelled  in 
the  soaking  drizzle  from  the  farther  exti-emities  of  the 
island.  And,  judging  from  the  serious  attention  with 
which  they  listened  to  the  discourse,  they  must  have 
deemed  it  full  value  for  all  it  cost  them.  I  have  never 
yet  seen  a  congregation  more  deeply  impressed,  or  that 
seemed  to  follow  the  preacher  more  intelligently  ;  and 
I  was  quite  sure,  though  ignorant  of  the  language  in  which 
my  friend  addressed  them,  that  he  preached  to  them 
neither  heresy  nor  nonsense.  There  was  as  little  of  the 
reverence  of  externals  in  the  place  as  can  well,  be  im- 
agined :  an  uneven  earthen  floor,  —  turf-walls  on  every 
side,  and  a  turf-roof  above,  —  two  little  windows  of  four 
panes  a-piece,  adown  which  the  rain-drops  were  coursing 
thick  and  fast,  —  a  pulpit  grotesquely  rude,  that  had  never 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.         109 

employed  the  bred  carpenter,  —  and  a  few  ranges  of  seats 
of  undressed  deal,  such  were  the  mere  materialisms  of  this 
lowly  church  of  the  people ;  and  yet  here,  notwithstand- 
ing, was  the  living  soul  of  a  Christian  community, — 
understandings  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  gospel,  and 
hearts  softened  and  impressed  by  its  power. 

My  friend,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  discourse,  gave  a 
brief  digest  of  its  contents  in  English,  for  the  benefit  of  his 
one  Saxon  auditor ;  and  I  found,  as  I  had  anticipated,  that 
what  had  so  moved  the  simple  islanders  was  just  the  old 
wondrous  story,  which,  though  repeated  and  re-repeated 
times  beyond  number,  from  the  days  of  the  apostles  till 
now,  continues  to  be  as  full  of  novelty  and  interest  as 
ever,  — "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him  should 
not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  The  great  truths 
which  had  affected  many  of  these  poor  people  to  tears, 
were  exactly  those  which,  during  the  last  eighteen  hun- 
dred years,  have  been  active  in  effecting  so  many  moral 
revolutions  in  the  world,  and  which  must  ultimately  tri- 
umph over  all  error  and  all  oppression.  On  this  occasion, 
as  on  many  others,  I  had  to  regret  my  want  of  Gaelic.  It 
was  my  misfortune  to  miss  being  born  to  this  ancient  lan- 
guage, by  barely  a  mile  of  ferry.  I  first  saw  light  on  the 
southern  shore  of  the  Frith  of  Cromarty,  where  the  strait 
is  narrowest,  among  an  old  established  Lowland  commun- 
ity, marked  by  all  the  characteristics,  physical  and  mental, 
of  the  Lowlanders  of  the  southern  districts ;  whereas,  had  I 
been  born  on  the  northern  shore,  I  would  have  been  brought 
up  among  a  Celtic  tribe,  and  Gaelic  would  have  been  my 
earliest  language.  Thus  distinct  was  the  line  between  the 
two  races  preserved,  even  after  the  commencement  of  the 
present  century. 

In  returning  to  the  Betsey  during  the  mid-day  interval 
10 


110  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

in  the  service,  we  passed  the  ruinous  two-gabled  house 
beside  the  boat-harbor.  During  the  incumbency  of  my 
friend's  predecessor,  it  had  been  the  public-house  of  the 
island,  and  the  parish  minister  was  by  far  its  best  customei-. 
He  was  in  the  practice  of  sitting  in  one  of  its  dingy  little 
rooms,  day  after  day,  imbibing  whisky  and  peat-reek  ;  and 
his  favorite  boon  companion  on  these  occasions  was  a  Ro- 
man Catholic  tenant  who  lived  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
island,  and  who,  when  drinking  with  the  minister,  used 
regularly  to  fasten  his  horse  beside  the  door,  till  at  length 
all  the  parish  came  to  know  that  when  the  horse  was 
standing  outside  the  minister  was  drinking  within.  In 

O  tj 

course  of  time,  through  the  natural  gravitation  operative 
in  such  cases,  the  poor  incumbent  became  utterly  scanda- 
lous, and  was  libelled  for  drunkenness  before  the  General 
Assembly ;  but,  as  the  island  of  Eigg  lies  remote  from  ob- 
servation, evidence  was  difficult  to  procure ;  and  had  not 
the  infatuated  man  got  senselessly  drunk  one  evening, 
when  in  Edinburgh  on  his  trial,  and  staggered,  of  all 
places  in  the  world,  into  the  General  Assembly,  he  would 
probably  have  died  minister  of  Eigg.  As  the  event  hap- 
pened, however,  the  testimony  thus  unwittingly  furnished 
in  the  face  of  the  Court  that  tried  him  was  deemed  con- 
clusive; —  he  was  summarily  deposed  from  his  office,  and 
my  friend  succeeded  him.  Presbyterianism  without  the 
animating  life  is  a  poor  shrunken  thing :  it  never  lies  in 
state  when  it  is  dead ;  for  it  has  no  body  of  fine  forms,  or 
trapping  of  imposing  ceremonies,  to  give  it  bulk  or  adorn- 
ment :  without  the  vitality  of  evangelism  it  is  nothing ; 
and  in  this  low  and  abject  state  my  friend  found  the  Pres- 
byterianism of  Eigg.  His  predecessor  had  done  it  only 
mischief;  nor  had  it  been  by  any  means  vigorous  before. 
Rum  is  one  of  the  four  islands  of  the  parish  ;  and  all  my 
readers  must  be  familiar  with  Dr.  Johnson's  celebrated 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          HI 

account  of  the  conversion  to  Protestantism  of  the  people 
of  Rum.  "  The  inhabitants,"  says  the  Doctor,  in  his 
"  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands,"  "  are  fifty-eight  fami- 
lies, who  continued  Papists  for  some  time  after  the  laird 
became  a  Protestant.  Their  adherence  to  their  old  reli- 
gion was  strengthened  by  the  countenance  of  the  laii'd's 
sister,  a  zealous  Romanist ;  till  one  Sunday,  as  they  were 
going  to  mass  under  the  conduct  of  their  patroness,  Mac- 
lean met  them  on  the  way,  gave  one  of  them  a  blow  on 
the  head  with  a  yellow  stick, — I  suppose  a  cane,  for  which 
the  Erse  had  no  name,  and  drove  them  to  the  kirk,  from 
which  they  have  never  departed.  Since  the  use  of  this 
method  of  conversion,  the  inhabitants  of  Eigg  and  Canna 
who  continue  Papists  call  the  Protestantism  of  Rum  the 
religion  of  the  yellow  stick."  Now,  such  was  the  kind  of 
Protestantism  that,  since  the  days  of  Dr.  Johnson,  had 
also  been  introduced,  I  know  not  by  what  means,  into 
Eigg.  It  had  lived  on  the  best  possible  terms  with  the 
Popery  of  the  island ;  the  parish  minister  had  soaked  day 
after  day  in  the  public-house  with  a  Roman  Catholic  boon 
companion  ;  and  when  a  Papist  man  married  a  Protestant 
woman,  the  woman,  as  a  matter  of  course,  became  Papist 
also ;  whereas,  when  it  was  the  man  who  was  a  Protestant, 
and  the  woman  a  Papist,  the  woman  remained  what  she 
had  been.  Roman  Catholicism  was  quite  content  with 
terms,  actual  though  not  implied,  of  a  kind  so  decidedly 
advantageous  ;  and  the  Roman  Catholics  used  good- 
humoredly  to  urge  on  their  neighbors  the  Protestants, 
that,  as  it  was  palpable  they  had  no  religion  of  any  kind, 
they  had  better  surely  come  over  to  them,  and  have  some. 
In  short,  all  was  harmony  between  the  two  Churches.  My 
friend  labored  hard,  as  a  good  and  honest  man  ought,  to 
impart  to  Protestantism  in  his  parish  the  animating  life  of 


112        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  ;  OK, 

the  Reformation ;  and,  through  the  blessing  of  God,  after 
years  of  anxious  toil,  he  at  length  fully  succeeded. 

I  had  got  wet,  and  the  day  continued  bad;  and  so, 
instead  of  returning  to  the  evening  sermon,  which  began 
at  six,  I  remained  alone  aboard  of  the  vessel.  The  rain 
ceased  in  little  more  than  an  hour  after,  and  in  somewhat 
more  than  two  hours  I  got  up  on  deck  to  see  whether  the 
congregation  was  not  dispersing,  and  if  it  was  not  yet 
time  to  hang  on  the  kettle  for  our  evening  tea.  The  unex- 
pected apparition  of  some  one  aboard  the  Free  Church 
yacht  startled  two  ragged  boys  who  were  manoeuvring  a 
little  boat  a  stonecast  away,  under  the  rocky  shores  of 
Eilean  Chaisteil,  and  who,  on  catching  a  glimpse  of  me, 
flung  themselves  below  the  thwarts  for  concealment.  An 
oar  dropped  into  the  water ;  there  was  a  hasty  arm  and 
half  a  head  thrust  over  the  gunwale  to  secure  it ;  and  then 
the  urchin  to  whom  they  belonged  again  disappeared. 
Meanwhile  the  boat  drifted  slowly  away:  first  one  little 
head  would  appear  for  a  moment  over  the  gunwale,  then 
another,  as  if  reconnoitering  the  enemy ;  but  I  still  kept 
my  place  on  deck;  and  at  length,  tired  out,  the  ragged 
little  crew  took  to  their  oars,  and  rowed  into  a  shallow 
bay  at  the  lower  extremity  of  the  glebe,  with  a  cottage,  in 
size  and  appearance  much  resembling  an  ant-hill,  peeping 
out  at  its  inner  extremity  among  some  stunted  bushes.  I 
had  marked  the  place  before,  and  had  been  struck  with 
the  peculiarity  of  the  choice  that  could  have  fixed  on  it  as 
a  site  for  a  dwelling :  it  is  at  once  the  most  inconvenient 
and  picturesque  on  this  side  the  island.  A  semicircular 
line  of  columnar  precipices,  that  somewhat  resembles  an 
amphitheatre  turned  outside  in,  —  for  the  columns  that 
overlook  the  area  are  quite  as  lofty  as  those  which  should 
form  the  amphitheatre's  outer  wall,  —  sweeps  round  a  little 
bay,  flat  and  sandy  at  half-tide,  but  bordered  higher  up  by 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         113 

a  clingy,  scarce  passable  beach  of  columnar  fragments  that 
have  toppled  from  above.  Between  the  beach  and  the 
line  of  columns  there  is  a  bosky  talus,  more  thickly  cov- 
ered with  brushwood  than  is  at  all  common  in  the  Heb- 
rides, and  scarce  more  passable  than  the  rough  beach  at 
its  feet.  And  at  the  bottom  of  this  talus,  with  its  one 
gable  buried  in  the  steep  ascent,  —  for  there  is  scarce  a 
foot-breadth  of  platform  between  the  slope  and  the  beach, 
—  and  with  the  other  gable  projected  to  the  tide-line  on 
rugged  columnar  masses,  stands  the  cottage.  The  story 
of  the  inmate,  —  the  father  of  the  two  ragged  boys,  —  is 
such  a  one  as  Crabbe  would  have  delighted  to  tell,  and  as 
he  could  have  told  better  than  any  one  else. 

He  had  been,  after  a  sort,  a  freebooter  in  his  time,  but 
born  an  age  or  two  rather  late ;  and  the  law  had  proved 
over  strong  for  him.  On  at  least  one  occasion,  perhaps 
oftener,  —  for  his  adventures  are  not  all  known  in  Eigg,  — 
he  had  been  in  prison  for  sheep-stealing.  He  had  the 
dangerous  art  of  subsisting  without  the  ostensible  means, 
and  came  to  be  feared  and  avoided  by  his  neighbors  as  a 
man  who  lived  on  them  without  asking  their  leave.  With 
neither  character  nor  a  settled  way  of  living,  his  wits,  I 
am  afraid,  must  have  been  often  whetted  by  his  necessi- 
ties: he  stole  lest  he  should  starve.  For  some  time  he 
had  resided  in  the  adjacent  island  of  Muck;  but,  proving 
a  bad  tenant,  he  had  been  ejected  by  the  agent  of  the 
landlord,  I  believe  a  very  worthy  man,  who  gave  him  half 
a  boll  of  meal  to  get  quietly  rid  of  him,  and  pulled  down 
his  house,  when  he  had  left  the  island,  to  prevent  his 
return.  Betaking  himself,  with  his  boys,  to  a  boat,  he  set 
out  in  quest  of  some  new  lodgment.  He  made  his  first 
attempt  or  two  on  the  mainland,  where  he  strove  to  drive 
a  trade  in  begging,  but  he  was  always  recognized  as  the 
convicted  sheep-stealer,  and  driven  back  to  the  shore.  At 

10 


114         TUE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY ;  OR, 

length,  after  a  miserable  term  of  wandering,  he  landed  in 
the  winter  season  on  Eigg,  where  he  had  a  grown-up  son, 
a  miller ;  and,  erecting  a  wretched  shed  with  some  spars 
and  the  old  sail  of  a  boat  placed  slantways  against  the 
side  of  a  rock,  he  squatted  on  the  beach,  determined, 
whether  he  lived  or  died,  to  find  a  home  on  the  island. 
The  islanders  were  no  strangers  to  the  character  of  the 
poor  forlorn  creature,  and  kept  aloof  from  him,  —  none  of 
them,  however,  so  much  as  his  OAvn  son ;  and,  for  a  time, 
my  friend  the  minister,  aware  that  he  had  been  the  pest 
of  every  community  among  which  he  had  lived,  stood 
aloof  from  him  too,  in  the  hope  that  at  length,  wearied 
out,  he  might  seek  for  himself  a  lodgment  elsewhere. 
There  came  on,  however,  a  dreary  night  of  sleet  and  rain, 
accompanied  by  a  fierce  storm  from  the  sea ;  and  intelli- 
gence reached  the  manse  late  in  the  evening,  that  the 
wretched  sheep-stealer  had  been  seized  by  sudden  illness, 
and  was  dying  on  the  beach.  There  could  be  no  room  for 
further  hesitation  in  this  case ;  and  my  friend  the  minister 
gave  instant  orders  that  the  poor  creature  should  be  car- 
ried to  the  manse.  The  party,  however,  which  he  had 
sent  to  remove  him  found  the  task  impracticable.  The 
night  was  pitch  dark ;  and  the  road,  dangerous  with  preci- 
pices, and  blocked  up  with  rough  masses  of  rock  and 
stone,  they  found  wholly  impassable  with  so  helpless  a 
burden.  And  so,  administering  some  cordials  to  the  poor, 
hapless  wretch,  they  had  to  leave  him  in  the  midst  of  the 
storm,  with  the  old  wet  sail  flapping  about  his  ears,  and 
the  half-frozen  rain  pouring  in  upon  him  in  torrents.  He 
must  have  passed  a  miserable  night,  but  it  could  not  have 
been  a  whit  more  miserable  than  that  passed  by  the  min- 
ister in  the  manse.  As  the  wild  blast  howled  around  his 
comfortable  dwelling,  and  shook  the  casements  as  if  some 
hand  outside  were  assaying  to  open  them,  or  as  the  rain 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.         115 

pattered  sharp  and  thick  on  the  panes,  and  the  measured 
roar  of  the  surf  rose  high  over  every  other  sound,  he 
could  think  of  only  the  wretched  creature  exposed  to  the 
fury  of  a  tempest  so  terrible,  as  perchance  Avrestling  in  his 
death  agony  in  the  darkness  beside  the  breaking  wave,  or 
as  already  stiffening  on  the  shore.  He  was  early  astir  next 
morning,  and  almost  the  first  person  he  met  was  the  poor 
sheep-stealer,  looking  more  like  a  ghost  than  a  living  man. 
The  miserable  creature  had  mustered  strength  enough  to 
crawl  up  from  the  beach.  My  friend  has  often  met  better 
men  Avith  less  pleasure.  He  found  a  shelter  for  the  poor 
outcast ;  he  tended  him,  prescribed  for  him,  and,  on  his 
recovery,  gave  him  leave  to  build  for  himself  the  hovel  at 
the  foot  of  the  crags.  The  islanders  were  aware  they  had 
got  but  an  indifferent  neighbor  through  the  transaction, 
though  none  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  the  poor  crea- 
ture's son,  saw  what  else  their  minister  could  have  done  in 
the  circumstances.  But  the  miller  could  sustain  no  apol- 
ogy for  the  arrangement  that  had  given  him  his  vagabond 
father  as  a  neighbor ;  and  oftener  than  once  the  site  of  the 
rising  hovel  became  a  scene  of  noisy  contention  between 
parent  and  son.  Some  of  the  islanders  informed  me  that 
they  had  seen  the  son  engaged  in  pulling  down  the  stones 
of  the  walls  as  fast  as  the  father  raised  them  up ;  and,  save 
for  the  interference  of  the  minister,  the  hut,  notwithstand- 
ing the  permission  he  gave,  would  scarce  have  been  built. 

On  the  morning  of  Monday  we  unloosed  from  our  moor- 
ings, and  set  out  with  a  light  variable  breeze  for  Isle  Orn- 
say,  in  Skye,  where  the  wife  and  family  of  Mr.  Swanson 
resided,  and  from  which  he  had  now  been  absent  for  a  full 
month.  The  island  diminished,  and  assumed  its  tint  of 
diluting  blue,  that  waxed  paler  and  paler  hour  after  hour, 
as  we  left  it  slowly  behind  us ;  and  the  Scuir,  projected 
boldly  from  its  steep  hill-top,  resembled  a  sharp  hatchet- 


116  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  J    OR, 

edge  presented  to  the  sky.  "  Nowhere,"  said  my  friend, 
"  did  I  so  thoroughly  realize  the  Disruption  of  last  year  as 
at  this  spot.  I  had  just  taken  my  last  leave  of  the  manse ; 
Mrs.  Swanson  had  staid  a  day  behind  me  in  charge  of  a 
few  remaining  pieces  of  furniture,  and  I  was  bearing  some 
of  the  rest,  and  my  little  boy  Bill,  scarce  five  years  of  age 
at  the  time,  in  the  yacht  with  me  to  Skye.  The  little  fel- 
low had  not  much  liked  to  part  from  his  mother,  and  the 
previous  unsettling  of  all  sorts  of  things  in  the  manse  had 
bred  in  him  thoughts  he  had  not  quite  words  to  express. 
The  further  change  to  the  yacht,  too,  he  had  deemed  far 
from  an  agreeable  one.  But  he  had  borne  up,  by  way  of 
being  veiy  manly;  and  he  seemed  rather  amused  that 
papa  should  now  have  to  make  his  porridge  for  him,  and 
to  put  him  to  bed,  and  that  it  was  John  Stewart,  the 
sailor,  who  was  to  be  the  servant  girl.  The  passage,  how- 
ever, was  tedious  and  disagreeable ;  the  wind  blew  a-head, 
and  heart  and  spirits  failing  poor  Bill,  and  somewhat  sea- 
sick to  boot,  he  lay  down  on  the  floor,  and  cried  bitterly 
to  be  taken  home.  '  Alas,  my  boy ! '  I  said,  '  you  have  no 
home  now:  your  father  is  like  the  poor  sheep-stealer 
whom  you  saw  on  the  shore  of  Eigg.  This  view  of  mat- 
ters proved  in  no  way  consolatory  to  poor  Bill.  He  con- 
tinued his  sad  wail,  '  Home,  home,  home ! '  until  at  length 
he  fairly  sobbed  himself  asleep ;  and  I  never,  on  any  other 
occasion,  so  felt  the  desolateness  of  my  condition  as  when 
the  cry  of  my  boy,  — '  Home,  home,  home ! '  —  was  ringing 
in  my  ears." 

"We  passed,  on  the  one  hand,  Loch  Nevis  and  Loch 
Hourn,  two  fine  arms  of  the  sea  that  run  far  into  the  main- 
land, and  open  up  noble  vistas  among  the  mountains ;  and, 
on  the  other,  the  long  undulating  line  of  Sleat  in  Skye, 
with  its  intermingled  patches  of  woodland  and  arable  on 
the  coast,  and  its  mottled  ranges  of  heath  and  rock  above. 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         117 

Towards  evening  we  entered  the  harbor  of  Isle  Ornsay,  a 
quiet,  well-sheltered  bay,  with  a  rocky  islet  for  a  break- 
water on  the  one  side,  and  the  rudiments  of  a  Highland 
village,  containing  a  few  good  houses,  on  the-other.  Half 
a  dozen  small  vessels  were  riding  at  anchor,  curtained 
round,  half-mast  high,  with  herring  nets ;  and  a  fleet  of 
herring-boats  lay  moored  beside  them  a  little  nearer  the 
shore.  There  had  been  tolerable  takes  for  a  few  nights  in 
the  neighboring  sea,  but  the  fish  had  again  disappeared, 
and  the  fishermen,  whose  worn-out  tackle  gave  such  evi- 
dence of  a  long-continued  run  of  ill-luck,  as  I  had  learned 
to  interpret  on  the  east  coast,  looked  gloomy  and  spirit- 
less, and  reported  a  deficient  fishery.  I  found  Mrs.  Swan- 
son  and  her  family  located  in  one  of  the  two  best  houses 
in  the  village,  with  a  neat  enclosure  in  front,  and  a  good 
kitchen-garden  behind.  The  following  day  I  spent  in 
exploring  the  rocks  of  the  district,  —  a  primary  region 
with  regard  to  organic  existence,  "without  form  and 
void."  From  Isle  Ornsay  to  the  Point  of  Sleat,  a  distance 
of  thirteen  miles,  gneiss  is  the  prevailing  deposit ;  and  in 
no  place  in  the  district  are  the  strata  more  varied  and 
interesting  than  in  the  neighborhood  of  Knockhouse,  the 
residence  of  Mr.  Elder,  which  I  found  pleasingly  situated 
at  the  bottom  of  a  little  open  bay,  skirted  with  picturesque 
knolls  partially  wooded,  that  present  to  the  surf  precipi- 
tous fronts  of  rock.  One  insulated  eminence,  a  gun-shot 
from  the  dwelling-house,  that  presents  to  the  sea  two 
mural  fronts  of  precipice,  and  sinks  in  steep  grassy  slopes 
on  two  sides  more,  bears  atop  a  fine  old  ruin.  There  is  a 
blind-fronted  massy  keep,  wrapped  up  in  a  mantle  of  ivy, 
perched  at  the  one  end,  where  the  precipice  sinks  steep- 
est ;  while  a  more  ruinous  though  much  more  modern  pile 
of  building,  perforated  by  a  double  row  of  windows,  occu- 
pies the  rest  of  the  area.  The  square  keep  has  lost  its 


118  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

genealogy  in  the  mists  of  the  past,  but  a  vague  tradition 
attributes  its  erection  to  the  Norwegians.  The  more 
modem  pile  is  said  to  have  been  built  about  three  centu- 
ries ago  by  a  younger  son  of  M'Donald  of  the  Isles ;  but  it 
is  added  that,  owing  to  the  jealousy  of  his  elder  brother, 
he  was  not  permitted  to  complete  or  inhabit  it.  I  find  it 
characteristic  of  most  Highland  traditions,  that  they  con- 
tain speeches :  they  constitute  tnie  oral  specimens  of  that 
earliest  and  rudest  style  of  historic  composition  in  which 
dialogue  alternates  with  narrative.  "My  wise  brother  is 
building  a  fine  house,"  is  the  speech  preserved  in  this  tra- 
dition as  that  of  the  elder  son :  "  it  is  rather  a  pity  for 
himself  that  he  should  be  building  it  on  another  man's 
lands."  The  remark  was  repeated  to  the  builder,  says  the 
story,  and  at  once  arrested  the  progress  of  the  work.  Mr. 
Elder's  boys  showed  me  several  minute  pieces  of  brass, 
somewhat  resembling  rust-eaten  coin,  that  they  had  dug 
out  of  the  walls  of  the  old  keep ;  but  the  pieces  bore  no 
impress  of  the  dye,  and  seemed  mere  fragments  of  metal 
beaten  thin  by  the  hammer. 

The  gneiss  at  Knock  is  exceedingly  various  in  its  com- 
position, and  many  of  its  strata  the  geologist  would  fail  to 
recognize  as  gneiss  at  all.  We  find  along  the  precipices 
its  two  unequivocal  varieties,  the  schistose  and  the  gran- 
itic, passing  not  unfrequently,  the  former  into  a  true  mica 
schist,  the  latter  into  a  pale  feldspathose  rock,  thickly  per- 
vaded by  needle-like  crystals  of  tremolite,  that,  from  the 
style  of  the  grouping,  and  the  contrast  existing  between 
the  dark  green  of  the  enclosed  mineral,  and  the  pale  flesh- 
color  of  the  ground,  frequently  furnishes  specimens  of 
great  beauty.  In  some  pieces  the  tremolite  assumes  the 
common  fan-like  form;  in  some,  the  crystals,  lying  at 
nearly  right  angles  with  each  other,  present  the  appear- 
ance of  ancient  characters  inlaid  in  the  rock ;  in  some  they 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    119 

resemble  the  footprints  of  birds  in  a  thin  layer  of  snow ; 
and  in  one  curious  specimen  picked  up  by  Mr.  Swanson, 
in  which  a  dark  linear  strip  is  covered  transversely  by 
crystals  that  project  thickly  from  both  its  sides,  the 
appearance  presented  is  that  of  a  minute  stigmaria  of  the 
Coal  Measures,  with  the  leaves,  still  bearing  their  original 
green  color,  bristling  thick  around  it.  Mr.  Elder  showed 
me,  intercalated  among  the  gneiss  strata  of  a  little  ravine 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Isle  Ornsay,  a  thin  band  of  a 
bluish-colored  indurated  clay,  scarcely  distinguishable,  in 
the  hand  specimen,  from  a  weathered  clay-stone,  but 
unequivocally  a  stratum  of  the  rock.  I  have  found  the 
same  stone  existing,  in  a  decomposed  state,  as  a  very  tena- 
cious clay,  among  the  gneiss  strata  of  the  hill  of  Cromarty ; 
and  oftener  than  once  had  I  amused  myself  in  fashioning 
it,  with  tolerable  success,  into  such  rude  pieces  of  pottery 
as  are  sometimes  found  in  old  sepulchral  tumuli.  Such 
are  a  few  of  the  rocks  included  in  the  general  gneiss 
deposit  of  Sleat.  If  we  are  to  hold,  with  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  of  living  geologists,  that  the  stratified  pri- 
mary rocks  are  aqueous  deposits  .altered  by  heat,  to  how 
various  a  chemistry  must  they  not  have  been  subjected  in 
this  district !  In  one  stratum,  so  softened  that  all  its  par- 
ticles were  disengaged  to  enter  into  new  combinations, 
and  yet  not  so  softened  but  that  it  still  maintained  its 
lines  of  division  from  the  strata  above  and  below,  the 
green  tremolite  was  shooting  its  crystals  into  the  pale 
homogeneous  mass ;  while  in  another  stratum  the  quartz 
drew  its  atoms  apart  in  masses  that  assumed  one  especial 
form,  the  feldspar  drew  its  atoms  apart  into  masses  that 
assumed  another  and  different  form,  and  the  glittering 
mica  built  up  its  multitudinous  layers  between.  Here  the 
unctuous  chlorite  constructed  its  soft  felt ;  there  the  mica- 
ceous schist  arranged  its  undulating  layers;  yonder  the 


120        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

dull  clay  hardened  amid  the  intense  heat,  but,  when  all 
else  was  changing,  retained  its  structure  unchanged. 
Surely  a  curious  chemistry,  and  conducted  on  an  enor- 
mous scale ! 

It  had  been  an  essential  part  of  my  plan  to  explore  the 
splendid  section  of  the  Lower  Oolite  furnished  by  the  line 
of  sea-cliffs  that,  to  the  north  of  the  Portree,  rise  full  seven 
hundred  feet  over  the  beach ;  and  on  the  morning  of 
Wednesday  I  set  out  with  this  intention  from  Isle  Ornsay, 
to  join  the  mail  gig  at  Broadford,  and  pass  on  to  Portree, 
—  a  journey  of  rather  more  than  thirty  miles.  I  soon 
passed  over  the  gneiss,  and  entered  on  a  wide  deposit, 
extending  from  side  to  side  of  the  island,  of  what  is  gen- 
erally laid  down  in  our  geological  maps  as  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone, but  which,  in  most  of  its  beds,  quite  as  much  resem- 
bles a  quartz  rock,  and  which,  unlike  any  Old  Red  proper 
I  have  ever  seen,  passes,  by  insensible  gradations,  into  the 
gneiss.*  Wherever  it  has  been  laid  bare  in  flat  tables 
among  the  heath,  we  find  it  bearing  those  mysterious 
scratches  on  a  polished  surface  which  we  so  commonly 
find  associated  on  the  mainland  with  the  boulder  clay ;  but 
here,  as  in  the  Hebrides  generally,  the  boulder  clay  is 
wanting.  To  the  tract  of  R£ d  Sandstone  there  succeeds  a 
tract  of  Lias,  which,  also  extending  across  the  island,  forms 
by  far  the  most  largely-developed  deposit  of  this  formation 
in  Scotland.  It  occupies  a  flat  dingy  valley,  about  six 
miles  in  length,  and  that  varies  from  two  to  four  miles  in 
breadth.  The  dreaiy  interior  is  covered  with  mosses,  and 
studded  with  inky  pools,  in  which  the  botanist  finds  a  few 
rare  plants,  and  which  were  dimpled,  as  I  passed  them  this 

*  Professor  Nicol  of  Aberdeen  believes  the  Red  Sandstones  of  the  West 
Highlands  are  of  Devonian  age,  and  the  quartxite  and  limestone  of  Lower 
Carboniferous.  —  See  Quarterly  Journal  of  the  Geological  Society,  February 
18-37.  —  W.  S. 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    121 

morning,  with  countless  eddies,  formed  by  myriads  of 
small  quick  glancing  trout,  that  seemed  busily  engaged  in 
fly-catching.  The  rock  appears  but  rarely,  —  all  is  moss, 
marsh,  and  pool ;  but  in  a  few  localities  on  the  hill-sides, 
where  some  stream  has  cut  into  the  slope,  and  disinte- 
grated the  softer  shales,  the  shepherd  finds  shells  of 
strange  form  strewed  along  the  water-courses,  or  bleaching 
white  among  the  heath.  The  valley,  —  evidently  a  dan- 
gerous one  to  the  night  traveller,  from  its  bogs  and  its 
tarns,  —  is  said  to  be  haunted  by  a  spirit  peculiar  to  itself, 
—  a  mischievous,  eccentric,  grotesque  creature,  not  unwor- 
thy, from  the  monstrosity  of  its  form,  of  being  associated 
with  the  old  monsters  of  the  Lias.  Luidag  —  for  so  the 
goblin  is  called  —  has  but  one  leg,  terminating,  like  an 
ancient  satyr's,  in  a  cloven  foot ;  but  it  is  furnished  Avith 
two  arms,  bearing  hard  fists  at  the  end  of  them,  with 
which  it  has  been  known  to  strike  the  benighted  traveller 
in  the  face,  or  to  tumble  him  over  into  some  dark  pool. 
The  spectre  may  be  seen  at  the  close  of  evening  hopping 
vigorously  among  the  distant  bogs,  like  a  felt  ball  on  its 
electric  platform ;  and  when  the  mist  lies  thick  in  the  hol- 
lows, an  occasional  glimpse  may  be  caught  of  it  even  by 
day.  But  when  I  passed  the  way  there  was  no  fog :  the 
light,  though  softened  by  a  thin  film  of  cloud,  fell  equally 
over  the  heath,  revealing  hill  and  hollow;  and  I  was 
unlucky  enough  not  to  see  this  goblin  of  the  Liasic  valley. 
A  deep  indentation  of  the  coast,  which  forms  the  bay  of 
Broadford,  corresponds  with  the  hollow  of  the  valley.  It 
is  simply  a  portion  of  the  valley  itself  occupied  by  the 
sea;  and  we  find  the  Lias,  from  its  lower  to  its  upper 
beds,  exposed  in  unbroken  series  along  the  beach.  In  the 
middle  of  the  opening  lies  the  green  level  island  of  Pabba, 
altogether  composed  of  this  formation,  and  which,  differ- 
ing, in  consequence,  both  in  outline  and  color,  from  every 

11 


122  THE    CKUISE    OF    THE    BETSEY. 

neighboring  island  and  hill,  seems  a  little  bit  of  flat  fertile 
England,  laid  down,  as  if  for  contrast's  sake,  amid  the  wild 
rough  Hebrides.  Of  Pabba  and  its  wonders,  however, 
more  anon.  I  explored  a  considerable  range  of  shore 
along  the  bay;  but  as  I  made  it  the  subject  of  two  after 
explorations  ere  I  mastered  its  deposits,  I  shall  defer  my 
description  till  a  subsequent  chapter.  It  was  late  this 
evening  ere  the  post-gig  arrived  from  the  south,  and  the 
night  and  several  hours  of  the  following  morning  were 
spent  in  travelling  to  Portree.  I  know  not,  however,  that 
I  could  have  seen  some  of  the  wildest  and  most  desolate 
tracts  in  Skye  to  greater  advantage.  There  was  light 
enough  to  show  the  bold  outlines  of  the  hills,  —  lofty, 
abrupt,  pyramidal, — just  such  hills,  both  in  form  and 
grouping,  as  a  profile  in  black  showed  best ;  a  low  blue 
vapor  slept  in  the  calm  over  the  marshes  at  their  feet ;  the 
sea,  smooth  as  glass,  reflected  the  dusk  twilight  gleam  in 
the  north,  revealing  the  narrow  sounds  and  deep  moun- 
tain-girdled lochs  along  which  we  passed ;  gray  crags 
gleamed  dimly  on  the  sight;  birch-feathered  acclivities 
presented  against  sea  and  sky  their  rough  bristly  edges ; 
all  was  vast,  dreamy,  obscure,  like  one  of  Martin's  darker 
pictures :  the  land  of  the  seer  and  the  spectre  could  not 
have  been  better  seen.  Morning  broke  dim  and  gray, 
while  we  were  yet  several  miles  from  Portree ;  and  I 
reached  the  inn  in  time  to  see  from  my  bed-room  win- 
dows the  first  rays  of  the  rising  sun  gleaming  on  the  hill- 
tops. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Exploration  resumed  —  Geology  of   Rasay  —  An  Illustration  —  Siorr  of  Skye 

—  From  Portree  to  Holm — Discovery  of  Fossils  —  An  Island  Rain — Sir  R. 
Murchison  —  Labor  of  drawing  a  Geological  Line  —  Three  Edinburgh  Gentle- 
men— Prosopolepsi a — Wrong  surmises  corrected — The  Mail  Gig  —  The  Portree 
Postmaster — Isle  Ornsay  —  An  Old  Acquaintance — Reminiscences  —  A  Run 
for  Rum —  "  Semi-fossil  Madeira1'  —  Idling  on  Deck  —  Prognostics  of  a  Storm 

—  Description  of  the  Gale  —  Loch  Scresort  —  The  Minister's  lost  Sou-wester 
— The  Free  Church  Gathering  —  The  weary  Minister. 

I  BREAKFASTED  in  the  travellers'  room  with  three  gen- 
tlemen from  Edinburgh  ;  and  then,  accompanied  by  a  boy, 
whom  I  had  engaged  to  carry  my  bag,  set  out  to  explore. 
The  morning  was  ominously  hot  and  breathless  ;  and 
while  the  sea  lay  moveless  in  the  calm,  as  a  floor  of  pol- 
ished marble,  mountain  and  rock,  and  distant  island, 
seemed  tremulous  all  over,  through  a  wavy  medium  of 
thick  rising  vapor.  I  judged  from  the  first  that  my  course 
of  exploration  for  the  day  was  destined  to  terminate  ab- 
ruptly ;  and  as  my  arrangements  with  Mr.  Swanson  left 
me,  for  this  part  of  the  country,  no  second  day  to  calculate 
upon,  I  hurried  over  deposits  which  in  other  circumstances 
I  would  have  examined  more  carefully, —  content  with  a 
glance.  Accustomed  in  most  instances  to  take  long  aims, 
as  Cuddy  Headrig  did,  when  he  steadied  his  musket  on  a 
rest  behind  the  hedge,  and  sent  his  ball  through  Laird 
Oliphant's  forehead,  I  had  on  this  occasion  to  shoot  flying; 
and  so,  selecting  a  large  object  for  a  mark,  that  I  might 
run  the  less  risk  of  missing,  I  strove  to  acquaint  myself 
rather  with  the  general  structure  of  the  district  than  with 
the  organisms  of  its  various  fossiliferous  beds. 


124  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

The  long  narrow  island  of  Rasay  lies  parallel  to  the 
coast  of  Skye,  like  a  vessel  laid  along  a  wharf,  but  drawn 
out  from  it  as  if  to  suffer  another  vessel  of  the  same  size 
to  take  her  berth  between ;  and  on  the  eastern  shores  of 
both  Skye  and  Rasay  we  find  the  same  Oolitic  deposits 
tilted  up  at  nearly  the  same  angle.  The  section  presented 
on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  one  is  nearly  a  duplicate  of  the 
section  presented  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  other.  Dur- 
ing one  of  the  severer  frosts  of  last  winter  I  passed  along 
a  shallow  pond,  studded  along  the  sides  with  boulder 
stones.  It  had  been  frozen  over;  and  then,  from  the 
evaporation  so  common  in  protracted  frosts,  the  water  had 
shrunk,  and  the  sheet  of  ice  which  had  sunk  down  over 
the  central  portion  of  the  pond  exhibited  what  a  geologist 
would  term  very  considerable  marks  of  disturbance  among 
the  boulders  at  the  edges.  Over  one  sharp-backed  boulder 
there  lay  a  sheet  tilted  up  like  the  lid  of  a  chest  half- 
raised  ;  and  over  another  boulder  immediately  behind  it 
there  lay  another  uptilted  sheet,  like  the  lid  of  a  second 
half-open  chest ;  and  in  both  sheets,  the  edges,  lying  in 
nearly  parallel  lines,  presented  a  range  of  miniature  cliffs 
to  the  shore.  Now,  in  the  two  uptilted  ice-sheets  of  this 
pond  I  recognized  a  model  of  the  fundamental  Oolitic  de- 
posits Rasay  and  Skye.  The  mainland  of  Scotland  had 
its  representative  in  the  crisp  snow-covered  shore  of  the 
pond,  with  its  belt  of  faded  sedges ;  the  place  of  Rasay  was 
indicated  by  the  inner,  that  of  Skye  by  the  outer  boulder; 
while  the  ice-sheets,  with  their  shoreward-turned  line  of 
cliffs,  represented  the  Oolitic  beds,  that  turn  to  the  main- 
land their  dizzy  range  of  precipices,  varying  from  six  to 
eight  hundred  feet  in  height,  and  then,  sloping  outwards 
and  downwards,  disappear  under  mountain  wildernesses 
of  overlying  trap.  And  it  was  along  a  portion  of  the 
range  of  cliff  that  forms  the  outermost  of  the  two  uptilted 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    125 

lines,  and  which  presents  in  this  district  of  Skye  a  front- 
age of  nearly  twenty  continuous  miles  to  the  long  Sound 
of  Rasay,  that  my  to-day's  course  of  exploration  lay. 
From  the  top  of  the  cliff  the  surface  slopes  downwards 
for  about  two  miles  into  the  interior,  like  the  half-raised 
chest-lid  of  my  illustration  sloping  towards  the  hinges,  or 
the  uptilted  ice-table  of  the  boulder  sloping  towards  the 
centre  of  the  pond;  and  the  depression  behind  forms  a  flat 
moory  valley,  full  fifteen  miles  in  length,  occupied  by  a 
chain  of  dark  bogs  and  treeless  lochans.  A  long  line  of 
trap-hills  rises  over  it,  in  one  of  which,  considerably  in  ad- 
vance of  the  others,  I  recognized  the  Storr  of  Skye, 
famous  among  lovei'S  of  the  picturesque  for  its  strange 
group  of  mingled  pinnacles  and  towers  ;  while  directly 
crossing  into  the  valley  from  the  Sound,  and  then  running 
southwards  for  about  two  miles  along  its  bottom,  is  the 
noble  sea-arm,  Loch  Portree,  in  which,  as  indicated  by  the 
name  (the  King's  Port)  a  Scottish  king  of  the  olden  time, 
in  his  voyage  round  his  dominions,  cast  anchor.  The 
opening  of  the  loch  is  singularly  majestic; — the  cliffs 
tower  high  on  either  side  in  graceful  magnificence:  but 
from  the  peculiar  inward  slope  of  the  land,  all  within,  as 
the  loch  reaches  the  line  of  the  valley,  becomes  tame  and 
low,  and  a  black  dreary  moor  stretches  from  the  flat  ter- 
minal basin  into  the  interior.  The  opening  of  Loch  Por- 
tree is  a  palace  gateway,  erected  in  front  of  some  homely 
suburb,  that  occupies  the  place  which  the  palace  itself 
should  have  occupied. 

There  was,  however,  no  such  mixture  of  the  homely  and 
the  magnificent  in  the  route  I  had  selected  to  explore.  It 
lay  under  the  escarpment  of  the  cliff;  and  I  purposed  pur- 
suing it  from  Portree  to  Holm,  a  distance  of  about  six 
miles,  and  then  returning  by  the  flat  interior  valley.  On 
the  one  hand  rose  a  sloping  rampart,  full  seven  hundred 

11* 


126        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  J  OR, 

feet  in  height,  striped  longitudinally  with  alternating 
bands  of  white  sandstone  and  dark  shale,  and  capped  atop 
by  a  continuous  coping  of  trap,  that  lacked  not  massy 
tower,  and  overhanging  turret,  and  projecting  sentry-box; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  spreading  outwards  in  the  calm 
from  the  line  of  dark  trap-rocks  below,  like  a  mirror  from 
its  carved  frame  of  black  oak,  lay  the  Sound  of  Rasay, 
Avith  its  noble  background  of  island  and  main  rising  bold 
on  the  east,  and  its  long  mountain  vista  opening  to  the 
south.  The  first  fossiliferous  deposit  which  gave  me  occa- 
sion this  morning  to  use  my  hammer  occurs  near  the  open- 
ing of  the  loch,  beside  an  old  Celtic  burying-ground,  in 
the  form  of  a  thick  bed  of  hard  sandstone,  charged  with 
Belemnites,  —  a  bed  that  must  at  one  time  have  existed  as 
a  widely-spread  accumulation  of  sand,  —  the  bottom,  may- 
hap, of  some  extensive  bay  of  the  Oolite,  resembling  the 
Loch  Portree  of  the  present  day,  in  which  eddy  tides 
deposited  the  sand  swept  along  by  the  tidal  currents  of 
some  neighboring  sound,  and  which  swarmed  as  thickly 
with  Cephalopoda  as  the  loch  swarmed  this  day  with 
minute  purple-tinged  Medusae.  I  found  detached  on  the 
shore,  immediately  below  this  bed,  a  piece  of  calcareous 
fissile  sandstone,  abounding  in  small  sulcated  Terebratula3, 
identical,  apparently,  with  the  Terebratula  of  a  specimen 
in  my  collection  from  the  inferior  Oolite  of  Yorkshire.  A 
colony  of  this  delicate  Brachiopod  must  have  once  lain 
moored  near  this  spot,  like  a  fleet  of  long-prowed  galleys 
at  anchor,  each  one  with  its  cable  of  many  strands 
extended  earthwards  from  the  single  dead-eye  in  its 
umbone.  For  a  full  mile  after  rounding  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  loch,  we  find  the  immense  escarpment 
composed  from  top  to  bottom  exclusively  of  trap;  but 
then  the  Oolite  again  begins  to  appear,  and  about  two 
miles  further  on  the  section  becomes  truly  magnificent,  — 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMOXG  THE  HEBRIDES.    127 

one  of  the  finest  sections  of  this  formation  exhibited  any- 
where in  Britain,  perhaps  in  the  world.  In  a  ravine  fur- 
rowed in  the  face  of  the  declivity  by  the  headlong  descent 
of  a  small  stream,  we  may  trace  all  the  beds  of  the  system 
in  succession,  fi-om  the  Cornbrash,  an  upper  deposit  of  the 
Lower  Oolite,  down  to  the  Lias,  the  formation  on  which 
the  Oolite  rests.  The  only  modifying  circumstance  to  the 
geologist  is,  that  though  the  sandstone  beds  run  continu- 
ously along  the  cliff  for  miles  together,  distinct  as  the 
white  bands  in  a  piece  of  onyx,  the  intervening  beds  of 
shale  are  swarded  over,  save  where  we  here  and  there  see 
them  laid  bare  in  some  abrupter  acclivity  or  deeper  water- 
course. In  the  shale  we  find  numerous  minute  Ammon- 
ites, sorely  weathered ;  in  the  sandstone,  Belemnites,  some 
of  them  of  great  size ;  and  dark  carbonaceous  markings, 
passing  not  unfrequently  into  a  glossy  cubical  coal.  At 
the  foot  of  the  cliff  I  picked  up  an  ammonite  of  considera- 
ble size  and  well-marked  character,  —  the  Ammonites 
MurchisoncE,  first  discovered  on  this  coast  by  Sir  R.  Mur- 
chison  about  fifteen  years  ago.  It  measures,  when  full 
grown,  from  six  to  seven  inches  in  diameter;  the  inner 
whorls,  which  are  broadly  visible,  are  ribbed ;  whereas  the 
two,  and  sometimes  the  three  outer  ones,  are  smooth,  —  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  species.  My  specimen  merely 
enabled  me  to  examine  the  peculiarities  of  the  shell  just  a 
little  more  minutely  than  I  could  have  done  in  the  pages 
of  Sowei-by ;  for  such  was  its  state  of  decay,  that  it  fell  to 
pieces  in  my  hands.  I  had  now  come  full  in  view  of  the 
rocky  island  of  Holm,  when  the  altered  appearance  of  the 
heavens  led  me  to  deliberate,  just  as  I  was  warming  in  the 
work  of  exploration,  whether,  after  all,  it  might  not  be 
well  to  scale  the  cliffs,  and  stiike  directly  on  the  inn.  It 
was  nearly  three  o'clock ;  the  sky  had  been  gradually 
darkening  since  noon,  as  if  one  thin  covering  of  gauze 


128  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE  BETSEY;   OR, 

after  another  had  been  drawn  over  it ;  hill  and  island  had 
first  dimmed  and  then  disappeared  in  the  landscape ;  and 
now  the  sun  stood  up  right  over  the  fast-contracting  vista 
of  the  Sound,  round  and  lightless  as  the  moon  in  a  haze  ; 
and  the  downward  cataract-like  streaming  of  the  gray 
vapor  on  the  horizon  showed  that  there  the  rain  had 
already  broken,  and  was  descending  in  torrents.  We  had 
been  thirsty  in  the  hot  sun,  and  had  found  the  springs  few 
and  scanty ;  but  the  boy  now  assured  me,  in  very  broken 
English,  that  we  were  to  get  a  great  deal  more  water  than 
would  be  good  for  us,  and  that  it  might  be  advisable  to 
get  out  of  its  way.  And  so,  climbing  to  the  top  of  the 
cliffs,  along  a  water-course,  we  reached  the  ridge,  just  as 
the  fog  came  rolling  downwards  from  the  peaked  brow  of 
the  Storr  into  the  flat  moory  valley,  and  the  melancholy 
lochans  roughened  and  darkened  in  the  rain.  We  were 
both  particularly  wet  ere  we  reached  Portree. 

In  exploring  our  Scotch  formations,  I  have  had  frequent 
occasion,  in  Ross,  Sutherland,  Caithness,  and  now  once  more 
in  Skye,  to  pass  over  ground  described  by  Sir  R.  Murchison  ; 
and  in  every  instance  have  I  found  myself  immensely  his 
debtor.  His  descriptions  possess  the  merit  of  being  true : 
they  are  simple  outlines  often,  that  leave  much  to  be  filled 
up  by  after  discovery ;  but,  like  those  outlines  of  the  skilful 
geographer  that  fix  the  place  of  some  island  or  strait,  though 
they  may  not  entirely  define  it,  they  always  indicate  the  exact 
position  in  the  scale  of  the  formations  to  which  they  refer. 
They  leave  a  good  deal  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  mapping 
out  the  interior  of  a  deposit,  if  I  may  so  speak ;  but  they 
leave  nothing  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  ascertaining  its  place. 
The  work  accomplished  is  bona  fide  work,  —  actual,  solid, 
not  to  be  done  over  again,  —  work  such  as  could  be  achieved 
in  only  the  school  of  Dr.  William  Smith,  the  father  of  English 
Geology.  I  have  found  much  to  admire,  too,  in  the  sections 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG    THE  HEBRIDES.         129 

of  Sir  R.  Murchison.  His  section  of  this  part  of  the  coast, 
for  example,  strikes  from  the  extreme  northern  part  of  Skye 
to  the  island  of  Holm,  thence  to  Scrapidale  in  Rasay,  thence 
along  part  of  the  coast  of  Scalpa,  thence  direct  through  the 
middle  of  Pabba,  and  thence  to  the  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Laig. 
The  line  thus  taken  includes,  in  regular  sequence  in  the  de- 
scending order,  the  whole  Oolitic  deposits  of  the  Hebrides, 
from  the  Cornbrash,  with  its  overlying  freshwater  outliers  of 
mayhap  the  Weald,  down  to  where  the  Lower  Lias  rests  on 
the  primary  red  sandstones  of  Sleat.  It  would  have  cost 
M'Culloch  less  exploration  to  have  written  a  volume  than  it 
must  have  cost  Sir  R.  Murchison  to  draw  this  single  line ; 
but  the  line  once  drawn,  is  work  done  to  the  hands  of  all 
after  explorers.  I  have  followed  repeatedly  in  the  track  of 
another  geologist,  of,  however,  a  very  different  school,  who 
explored,  at  a  comparatively  recent  period,  the  deposits  of 
not  a  few  of  our  Scotch  counties.  But  his  labors,  in  at  least 
the  fossiliferous  formations,  seem  to  have  accomplished  noth- 
ing for  Geology,  —  I  am  afraid,  even  less  than  nothing.  So 
far  as  they  had  influence  at  all,  it  must  have  been  to  throw 
back  the  science.  A  geologist  who  could  have  asserted  only 
three  years  ago  ("  Geognostical  Account  of  Banffshire," 
1842),  that  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  of  Scotland  forms  merely 
"  a  part  of  the  great  coal  deposit,"  could  have  known  mar- 
vellously little  of  the  fossils  of  the  one  system,  and  nothing 
whatever  of  those  of  the  other.  Had  he  examined  ere  he 
decided,  instead  of  deciding  without  any  intention  of 
examining,  he  would  have  found  that,  while  both  systems 
abound  in  organic  remains,  they  do  not  possess,  in  Scotland 
at  least,  a  single  species  in  common,  and  that  even  their 
types  of  being,  viewed  in  the  group,  are  essentially  distinct. 
The  three  Edinburgh  gentlemen  whom  I  had  jiet  at  break- 
fast were  still  in  the  inn.  One  of  them  I  had  seen  before, 
as  one  of  the  guests  at  a  Wesleyan  soiree,  though  I  saw  he 


130  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY  J    OR, 

failed  to  remember  that  I  had  been  there  as  a  guest  too. 
The  two  other  gentlemen  were  altogether  strangers  to  me. 
One  of  them,  —  a  man  on  the  right  side  of  forty,  and  a 
superb  specimen  of  the  powerful,  six-feet  two-inch  Norman 
Celt,  —  I  set  down  as  a  scion  of  some  old  Highland  family, 
who,  as  the  broadsword  had  gone  out,  carried  on  the  internal 
wars  of  the  country  with  the  formidable  artillery  of  Statute 
and  Decision.  The  other,  a  gentleman  more  advanced  in 
life,  I  predicated  to  be  a  Highland  proprietor,  the  uncle  of 
the  younger  of  the  two,  —  a  man  whose  name,  as  he  had  an 
air  of  business  about  him,  occurred,  in  all  probability,  in  the 
Almanac,  in  the  list  of  Scotch  advocates.  Both  were  of 
course  high  Tories,  —  I  was  quite  sure  of  that,  —  zealous  in 
behalf  of  the  Establishment,  though  previous  to  the  Disrup- 
tion they  had  not  cared  for  it  a  pin's  point,  —  and  prepared 
to  justify  the  virtual  suppression  of  the  toleration  laws  in 
the  case  of  the  Free. Church.  I  was  thus  decidedly  guilty 
of  what  old  Dr.  More  calls  a  prosopolepsia,  —  i.  e.  of  the 
crime  of  judging  men  by  their  looks.  At  dinner,  however, 
we  gradually  ate  ourselves  into  conversation :  we  differed, 
and  disputed,  and  agreed,  and  then  differed,  disputed  and 
agreed  again.  I  found  first,  that  my  chance  companions 
were  really  not  very  high  Tories ;  and  then,  that  they  were 
not  Tories  at  all ;  and  then,  that  the  younger  of  the  two 
was  very  much  a  Whig,  and  the  more  advanced  in  life,  — 
strange  as  the  fact  might  seem,  —  very  considerably  a  Pres- 
byterian Whig;  and  finally,  that  this  latter  gentleman, 
whom  I  had  set  down  as  an  intolerant  Highland  proprietor, 
was  a  respected  writer  to  the  signet,  a  Free  Church  elder  in 
Edinburgh;  and  that  the  other,  his  equally  intolerant 
nephew,  was  an  Edinburgh  advocate,  of  vigorous  talent, 
much  an  enemy  of  all  oppression,  and  a  brother  contributor 
of  my  own  to  one  of  the  Quarterlies.  Of  all  my  surmisings 
regarding  the  stranger  gentlemen,  only  two  points  held 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          131 

true,  —  they  were  both  gentlemen  of  the  law,  and  both  had 
Celtic  blood  in  their  veins.  The  evening  passed  pleasantly ; 
and  I  can  now  recommend  from  experience,  to  the  hapless 
traveller  who  gets  thoroughly  wet  thirty  miles  from  a 
change  of  dress,  that  some  of  the  best  things  he  can  resort 
to  in  the  circumstances  are,  a  warm  room,  a  warm  glass,  and 
agreeable  companions. 

On  the  morrow  I  behooved  to  return  to  Isle  Ornsay,  to  set 
out  on  the  following  day,  with  my  friend  the  minister,  for 
Rum,  whei-e  he  purposed  preaching  on  the  Sabbath.  To 
have  lost  a  day  would  have  been  to  lose  the  opportunity  of 
exploring  the  island,  perhaps  forever  ;  and,  to  make  all  sure, 
I  had  taken  a  seat  in  the  mail  gig,  from  the  postman  who 
drives  it,  ere  going  to  bed,  on  the  morning  of  my  arrival ; 
and  now,  when  it  drove  up,  I  went  to  take  my  place  in  it. 
The  postmaster  of  the  village,  a  lean,  hungry-looking  man, 
interfered  to  prevent  me.  I  had  secured  my  seat,  I  said, 
two  days  previous.  Ah,  but  I  had  not  secured  it  from  him. 
"  I  know  nothing  of  you,"  I  replied ;  "  but  I  secured  it  from 
one  who  deemed  himself  authorized  to  receive  the  fare; 
was  he  so  ?"  "  Yes."  "  Could  you  have  received  it  ?" 
"  No."  "  Show  me  a  copy  of  your  regulations."  "  I  have 
no  copy  of  regulations ;  but  I  have  given  the  place  in  the  gig 
to  another."  "  Just  so ;  and  what  say  you,  postman  ?" 
"  That  you  took  the  place  from  me,  and  that  he  has  no  right 
to  give  a  place  to  any  one :  I  carry  the  Portree  letters  to 
him,  but  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  passengers."  A 
person  present,  the  proprietor  or  stabler  of  the  horse,  I  be- 
lieve, also  interfered  on  the  same  side ;  but  what  Carlyle 
terms  the  "  gigmanity  "  of  the  postmaster  Avas  all  at  stake,  — 
his  whole  influence  in  the  mail-gig  of  Portree ;  and  so  he 
argued,  and  threatened  withal,  and,  what  was  the  more 
serious  part  of  the  business,  the  person  he  had  given  the 
seat  to  had  taken  possession  of  the  gig;  and  so  AVC  had  to 


132  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE  BETSEY  ;    OR, 

compound  the  matter  by  carrying  a  passenger  additional. 
The  incident  is  scarce  worth  relating ;  but  the  postmaster 
was  so  vehement  and  terrible,  so  defiant  of  us  all, — post, 
stabler,  and  simple  passenger,  —  and  so  justly  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  being  postmaster  of  Portree,  that, 
as  I  am  in  the  way  of  describing  rare  specimens  at  any  rate, 
I  must  refer  to  him  among  the  rest,  as  if  he  had  been  one  of 
the  minor  carnivone  of  a  Skye  deposit,  —  a  cuttlefish,  that 
preyed  on  the  weaker  molluscs,  or  a  hungry  polypus,  terrible 
among  the  animalcule. 

"We  drove  heavily,  and  had  to  dismoiint  and  walk  afoot 
over  every  steeper  acclivity;  but  I  earned  my  hammer, 
and  only  grieved  that  in  some  one  or  two  localities  the 
road  should  have  been  so  level.  I  regretted  it  in  especial 
on  the  southern  and  eastern  side  of  Loch  Sligachan,  where 
I  could  see  from  my  seat,  as  we  drove  past,  the  dark 
blue  rocks  in  the  water-courses  on  each  side  the  road, 
studded  over  with  that  characteristic  shell  of  the  Lias,  the 
Grryphcea  incurva,  and  that  the  dry-stone  fences  in  the 
moor  above  exhibit  fossils  that  might  figure  in  a  museum. 
But  we  rattled  by.  At  Broadford,  twenty-five  miles  from 
Portree,  and  nine  miles  from  Isle  Ornsay,  I  partook  of  a 
hospitable  meal  in  the  house  of  an  acquaintance ;  and  in 
little  more  than  two  hours  after  was  with  my  friend  the 
minister  at  Isle  Ornsay.  The  night  wore  pleasantly  by. 
Mrs.  Swanson,  a  niece  of  the  late  Dr.  Smith  of  Campbel- 
ton,  so  well  known  for  his  Celtic  researches  and  his 
exquisite  translations  of  ancient  Celtic  poetry,  I  found 
deeply  versed  in  the  legendary  lore  of  the  Highlands. 
The  minister  showed  me  a  fine  specimen  of  Pterichthys 
which  I  had  disinterred  for  him,  out  of  my  first  discovered 
fossiliferous  deposit  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  exactly  thir- 
teen years  before,  and  full  seven  years  ere  I  had  introduced 
the  creature  to  the  notice  of  Agassiz.  And  the  minister's 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.          133 

daughter,  a  little  chubby  girl  of  three  summers,  taking 
part  in  the  general  entertainment,  strove  to  make  her 
Gaelic  sound  as  like  English  as  she  could,  in  my  especial 
behalf.  I  remembered,  as  I  listened  to  the  unintelligible 
prattle  of  the  little  thing,  unprovided  with  a  word  of 
English,  that  just  eighteen  years  before,  her  father  had 
had  no  Gaelic ;  and  wondered  what  he  would  have  thought, 
could  he  have  been  told,  when  he  first  sat  down  to  study 
it,  the  story  of  his  island  charge  in  Eigg,  and  his  Free 
Church  yacht  the  Betsey.  Nineteen  years  before,  we  had 
been  engaged  in  beating  over  the  Eathie  Lias  together, 
collecting  Belemnites,  Ammonites,  and  fossil  wood,  and 
striving  in  friendly  emulation  the  one  to  surpass  the  other 
in  the  variety  and  excellence  of  our  specimens.  Our 
leisure  hours  were  snatched,  at  the  time,  from  college 
studies  by  the  one,  from  the  mallet  by  the  other :  there 
were  few  of  them  that  we  did  not  spend  together,  and 
that  we  were  not  mutually  the  better  for  so  spending.  I 
at  least,  owe  much  to  these  hours,  —  among  other  things, 
views  of  theologic  truth,  that  determined  the  side  I  have 
taken  in  our  ecclesiastical  controversy.  Our  courses  at 
an  after  period  lay  diverse  ;  the  young  minister  had 
greatly  more  important  business  to  pursue  than  any  which 
the  geologic  field  furnishes;  and  so  our  amicable  rivalry 
ceased  early.  In  the  Avords  in  which  an  English  poet 
addresses  his  brother,  —  the  clergyman  who  sat  for  the 
picture  in  the  "  Deserted  Village,"  —  my  friend  "  entered 
on  a  sacred  office,  where  the  harvest  is  great  and  the 
laborers  are  few,  and  left  to  me  a  field  in  which  the 
laborers  are  many,  and  the  harvest  scarce  worth  carrying 
away." 

Next  day  at  noon  we  weighed  anchor,  and  stood  out 
for  Rum,  a  run  of  about  twenty-five  miles.  A  kind  friend 
had,  we  found,  sent  aboard  in  our  behalf  two  pieces  of 

12 


134  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

rare  antiquity,  —  rare  anywhere,  but  especially  rare  in  the 
lockers  of  the  Betsey,  —  in  the  agreeable  form  of  two 
bottles  of  semi-fossil  Madeira,  —  Madeira  that  had  actually 
existed  in  the  grape  exactly  half  a  century  before,  at  the 
time  when  Robespierre  was  startling  Paris  from  its  pro- 
priety, by  mutilating  at  the  neck  the  busts  of  other  people, 
and  multiplying  casts  and  medals  of  his  own ;  and  we 
found  it,  explored  in  moderation,  no  bad  study  for  geolo- 
gists, especially  in  coarse  weather,  when  they  had  got  wet 
and  somewhat  fatigued.  It  was  like  Landlord  Boniface's 
ale,  mild  as  milk,  had  exchanged  its  distinctive  flavor  as 
Madeira  for  a  better  one,  and  filled  the  cabin  with  fra- 
grance every  time  the  cork  was  drawn.  Old  observant 
Homer  must  have  smelt  some  such  liquor  somewhere,  or 
he  could  never  have  described  so  well  the  still  more 
ancient  and  venerable  wine  with  which  wily  Ulysses 
beguiled  one-eyed  Polypheme :  — 

"  Unmingled  wine, 
Mellifluous,  undecaying,  and  divine, 
Which  now,  some  ages  from  his  race  concealed, 
The  hoary  sire  in  gratitude  revealed.    *    *      * 
Scarce  twenty  measures  from  the  living  stream 
To  cool  one  cup  sufficed :  the  goblet  crowned, 
Breathed  aromatic  fragrances  around." 

Winds  were  light  and  variable.  As  we  reached  the 
middle  of  the  sound  opposite  Armadale,  there  fell  a  dead 
calm ;  and  the  Betsey,  more  actively  idle  than  the  ship 
manned  by  the  Ancient  Mariner,  dropped  sternwards  along 
the  tide,  to  the  dull  music  of  the  flapping  sail.  The  min- 
ister spent  the  day  in  the  cabin,  engaged  with  his  discourse 
for  the  morrow ;  and  I,  that  he  might  suffer  as  little  from 
interruption  as  possible,  mis-spent  it  upon  the  deck.  I 
tried  fishing  with  the  yacht's  set  of  lines,  but  there  were 
no  fish  to  bite,  —  got  into  the  boat,  but  there  were  no 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          135 

neighboring  islands  to  visit, — and  sent  half  a  dozen  pistol- 
bullets  after  a  shoal  of  porpoises,  which,  coming  from  the 
Free  Church  yacht,  must  have  astonished  the  fat  sleek 
fellows  pretty  considerably,  but  did  them,  I  am  afraid,  no 
serious  damage.  As  the  evening  began  to  close  gloomy 
and  gray,  a  tumbling  swell  came  heaving  in  right  ahead 
from  the  west;  and  a  bank  of  cloud,  which  had  been 
gradually  rising  higher  and  darker  over  the  horizon  in  the 
same  direction,  first  changed  its  abrupt  edge  atop  for  a 
diffused  and  broken  line,  and  then  spread  itself  over  the 
central  heavens.  The  calm  was  evidently  not  to  be  a 
calm  long;  and  the  minister  issued  orders  that  the  gafF- 
topsail  should  be  taken  down,  and  the  storm-jib  bent ;  and 
that  we  should  lower  our  top-mast,  and  have  all  tight  and 
ready  for  a  smart  gale  ahead.  At  half  past  ten,  however, 
the  Betsey  was  still  pitching  to  the  swell,  with  not  a 
breath  of  wind  to  act  on  the  diminished  canvas,  and  with 
the  solitary  circumstance  in  her  favor,  that  the  tide  ran  no 
longer  against  her,  as  before.  The  cabin  was  full  of  all 
manner  of  creakings;  the  close  lamp  swung  to  and  fro 
over  the  head  of  my  friend  ;  and  a  refractory  Concordance, 
after  having  twice  travelled  from  him  along  the  entire  length 
of  the  table,  flung  itself  pettishly  upon  the  floor.  I  got  into 
my  snug  bed  about  eleven ;  and  at  twelve,  the  minister, 
after  poring  sufficiently  over  his  notes,  and  drawing  the  final 
score,  turned  into  his.  In  a  brief  hour  after,  on  came  the 
gale,  in  a  style  worthy  of  its  previous  hours  of  preparation ; 
and  my  friend,  —  his  Saturday's  work  in  his  ministerial 
capacity  well  over  when  he  had  completed  his  two  dis- 
courses,—  had  to  begin  the  Sabbath  morning  early  as  the 
morning  itself  began,  by  taking  his  stand  at  the  helm,  in  his 
capacity  of  skipper  of  the  Betsey.  With  the  prospect  of  the 
services  of  the  Sabbath  before  him,  and  after  working  all 
Saturday  to  boot,  it  was  rather  hard  to  set  him  down  to  a 


136  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY;    OK, 

midnight  spell  at  the  helm,  but  he  could  not  be  wanted  at 
such  a  time,  as  we  had  no  other  such  helmsman  aboard. 
The  gale,  thickened  with  rain,  came  down,  shrieking  like  a 
maniac,  from  off  the  peaked  hills  of  Rum,  striking  away  the 
tops  of  the  long  ridgy  billows  that  had  risen  in  the  calm  to 
indicate  its  approach,  and  then  carrying  them  in  sheets  of 
spray  aslant  the  furrowed  surface,  like  snow-drift  hurried 
across  a  frozen  field.  But  the  Betsey,  with  her  storm-jib 
set,  and  her  mainsail  reefed  to  the  cross,  kept  her  weather 
bow  bravely  to  the  blast,  and  gained  on  it  with  every  tack. 
She  had  been  the  pleasure  yacht,  in  her  day,  of  a  man  of 
fortune,  who  had  used,  in  running  south  with  her  at  times  as 
far  as  Lisbon,  to  encountei',  on  not  worse  terms  than  the 
stateliest  of  her  neighbors  in  the  voyage,  the  swell  of  the 
Bay  of  Biscay ;  and  she  still  kept  true  to  her  old  character, 
with  but  this  drawback,  that  she  had  now  got  somewhat 
crazy  in  her  fastenings,  and  made  rather  more  water  in  a 
heavy  sea  than  her  one  little  pump  could  conveniently  keep 
under.  As  the  fitful  gust  struck  her  headlong,  as  if  it  had 
been  some  invisible  missile  hurled  at  us  from  off  the  hill-tops, 
she  stooped  her  head  lower  and  lower,  like  old  stately  Har- 
dyknute  under  the  blow  of  the  "  King  of  Norse,"  till  at 
length  the  lee  chain-plate  rustled  sharp  through  the  foam ; 
but,  like  a  staunch  Free  Churchwoman,  the  lowlier  she  bent, 
the  more  steadfastly  did  she  hold  her  head  to  the  storm. 
The  strength  of  the  opposition  served  but  to  speed  her  on 
all  the  more  surely  to  the  desired  haven.  At  five  o'clock  in 
the  morning  we  cast  anchor  in  Loch  Scresort,  —  the  only 
harbor  of  Rum  in  which  a  vessel  can  moor,  —  within  two 
hundred  yards  of  the  shore,  having,  with  the  exception  of 
the  minister,  gained  no  loss  in  the  gale.  He,  luckless  man, 
had  parted  from  his  excellent  sou-wester-  a  sudden  gust  had 
seized  it  by  the  flap,  and  hurried  it  away  far  to  the  lee.  He 
had  yielded  it  to  the  winds,  as  he  had  done  the  temporalities, 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         137 

but  much  more  unwillingly,  and  less  as  a  free  agent.  Should 
any  conscientious  mariner  pick  up  any  where  in  the- Atlantic 
a  serviceable  ochre-colored  sou-wester,  not  at  all  the  worse 
for  the  wear,  I  give  him  to  wit  that  he  holds  Free  Church 
property,  and  that  he  is  heartily  welcome  to  hold  it,  leaving 
it  to  himself  to  consider  whether  a  benefaction  to  its  full 
value,  deducting  salvage,  is  not  owing,  in  honor,  to  the 
Sustenation  Fund. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  ere  the  more  fatigued  aboard  could 
muster  resolution  enough  to  quit  their  beds  a  second  time ; 
and  then  it  behooved  the  minister  to  prepare  for  his  Sabbath 
labors  ashore.  The  gale  still  blew  in  fierce  gusts  from  the 
hills,  and  the  rain  pattered  like  small  shot  on  the  deck. 
Loch  Scresort,  by  no  means  one  of  our  finer  island  lochs, 
viewed  under  any  circumstances,  looked  particularly  dismal 
this  morning.  It  forms  the  opening  of  a  dreary  moorland 
valley,  bounded  on  one  of  its  sides,  to  the  mouth  of  the  loch, 
by  a  homely  ridge  of  Old  Red  Sandstone,  and  on  the  other 
by  a  line  of  dark  augitic  hills,  that  attain,  at  the  distance  of 
about  a  mile  from  the  sea,  an  elevation  of  two  thousand  feet. 
Along  the  slopes  of  the  sandstone  ridge  I  could  discern, 
through  the  haze,  numerous  green  patches,  that  had  once 
supported  a  dense  population,  long  since  "cleared  off"  to 
the  backwoods  of  America,  but  not  one  inhabited  dwelling ; 
while  along  a  black  moory  acclivity  under  the  hills  on  the 
other  side  I  could  see  several  groups  of  turf  cottages,  with 
here  and  there  a  minute  speck  of  raw-looking  corn  beside 
them,  that,  judging  from  its  color,  seemed  to  have  but  a 
slight  chance  of  ripening.  The  hill-tops  were  lost  in  cloud 
and  storm ;  and  ever  and  anon,  as  a  heavier  shower  came 
sweeping  down  on  the  wind,  the  intervening  hollows  closed 
up  their  gloomy  vistas,  and  all  was  fog  and  rime  to  the 
water's  edge.  Bad  as  the  morning  was,  however,  we  could 
see  the  people  wending  their  way,  in  threes  and  fours, 
12* 


138  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY. 

through  the  dark  moor,  to  the  place  of  worship,  —  a  black 
turf  hovel,  like  the  meeting-house  in  Eigg.  The  appearance 
of  the  Betsey  in  the  loch  had  been  the  gathering  signal ; 
and  the  Free  Church  islanders, — three-fourths  of  the  entire 
population  —  had  all  come  out  to  meet  their  minister. 

On  going  ashore,  we  found  the  place  nearly  filled.  My 
friend  preached  two  long  energetic  discourses,  and  then 
returned  to  the  yacht,  "  a  worn  and  weary  man."  The  1 
studies  of  the  previous  day,  and  the  fatigues  of  the  previous 
night,  added  to  his  pulpit  duties,  had  so  fairly  prostrated  his 
strength,  that  the  sternest  teetotaller  in  the  kingdom  would 
scarce  have  forbidden  him  a  glass  of  our  fifty-year-old  Ma- 
deira. But  even  the  fifty-year-old  Madeira  proved  no  specific 
in  the  case.  He  was  suffering  under  excruciating  headache, 
and  had  to  stretch  himself  in  his  bed,  with  eyes  shut  but 
sleepless,  waiting  till  the  fit  should  pass,  —  every  pulse  that 
beat  in  his  temples  a  throb  of  pain. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Geology  of  Eum  — Its  curious  Character  illustrated  —  Bum  famous  for  Blood- 
stones—Bed  Sandstones  —  "  Scratchings  "  in  the  Rocks  — A  Geological 
Inscription  without  a  Key  —  The  Lizard  —  Vitality  broken  into  two  — 
Illustrations—  Speculation  —  Scuir  More  —  Ascent  of  the  Scuir  —  The  Blood- 
stones—An Illustrative  Set  of  the  Gem— M'Culloch's  Pebble  — A  Chemical 
Problem — The  solitary  Shepherd's  House  —  Sheep  versus  Men — The  Depop- 
ulation of  Rum  — A  Haul  of  Trout— Rum  Mode  of  catching  Trout— At 
Anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Glenelg. 

THE  geology  of  the  island  of  Rum  is  simple,  but  curious. 
Let  the  reader  take,  if  he  can,  from  twelve  to  fifteen  trap- 
hills,  varying  from  one  thousand  to  two  thousand  three 
hundred  feet  in  height;  let  him  pack  them  closely  and 
squarely  together,  like  rum-bottles  in  a  case-basket ;  let  him 
surround  them  with  a  frame  of  Old  Red  Sandstone,  meas- 
uring rather  more  than  seven  miles  on  the  side,  in  the  way 
the  basket  surrounds  the  bottles;  then  let  him  set  them 
down  in  the  sea  a  dozen  miles  off  the  land,  — and  he  shall 
have  produced  a  second  island  of  Rum,  similar  in  structure 
to  the  existing  one.  In  the  actual  island,  however,  there  is 
a  defect  in  the  inclosing  basket  of  sandstone :  the  basket, 
complete  on  three  of  its  sides,  wants  the  fourth :  and  the 
side  opposite  to  the  gap  which  the  fourth  should  have  occu- 
pied is  thicker  than  the  two  other  sides  put  together. 
Where  I  now  write  there  is  an  old  dark-colored  picture 
on  the  wall  before  me;  I  take  off  one  of  the  four  bars  of 
which  the  frame  is  composed,  —  the  end-bar,  —  and  stick  it 
on  to  the  end-bar  opposite,  and  then  the  picture  is  fully 
framed  on  two  of  its  sides,  and  doubly  framed  on  a  third, 
but  the  fourth  side  lacks  framing  altogether.  And  such  is 


140  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY  J    OR, 

the  geology  of  the  island  of  Rum.  We  find  the  one  loch  of 
the  island,  —  that  in  which  the  Betsey  lies  at  anchor,  —  and 
the  long  withdrawing  valley,  of  which  the  loch  is  merely  a 
prolongation,  occurring  in  the  double  sandstone  bar:  it 
seems  to  mark  —  to  return  to  my  illustration  —  the  line  in 
which  the  superadded  piece  of  frame  has  been  stuck  on  to 
the  frame  proper.  The  origin  of  the  island  is  illustrated  by 
its  structure :  it  has  left  its  story  legibly  written,  and  we 
have  but  to  run  our  eye  over  the  characters  and  read.  An 
extended  sea-bottom,  composed  of  Old  Red  Sandstone, 
already  tilted  up  by  previous  convulsions,  so  that  the  strata 
presented  their  edges,  tier  beyond  tier,  like  roofing  slate 
laid  aslant  on  a  floor,  became  a  centre  of  Plutonic  activity. 
The  molten  trap  broke  through  at  various  times,  and  pre- 
senting various  appearances,  but  in  nearly  the  same  centre  ; 
here  existing  as  an  augitic  rock,  there  as  a  syenite,  yonder 
as  a  basalt  or  amygdaloid.  At  one  place  it  uptilted  the 
sandstone;  at  another  it  overflowed  it;  the  dark  central 
masses  raised  their  heads  above  the  surface,  higher  and 
higher  with  every  earthquake  throe  from  beneath ;  till  at 
length  the  gigantic  Ben  More  attained  to  its  present  altitude 
of  two  thousand  three  hundred  feet  over  the  sea-level,  and 
the  sandstone,  borne  up  from  beneath  like  floating  sea-\vrack 
on  the  back  of  a  porpoise,  reached  in  long  outside  bands  its 
elevation  of  from  six  to  eight  hundi'ed.  And  such  is  the 
piece  of  history,  composed  in  silent  but  expressive  language, 
and  inscribed  in  the  old  geological  character,  on  the  rocks 
of  Rum. 

The  wind  lowered  and  the  rain  ceased  during  the  night, 
and  the  morning  of  Monday  was  clear,  bracing,  and 
breezy.  The  island  of  Rum  is  chiefly  famous  among  min- 
eralogists for  its  heliotropes  or  bloodstones ;  and  AVC  pro- 
posed devoting  the  greater  part  of  the  day  to  an  examina- 
tion of  the  hill  of  Scuir  More,  in  which  they  occur,  and 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.         141 

which  lies  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  island,  abont  eight 
miles  from  the  mooring  ground  of  the  Betsey.  Ere  set- 
ting out,  however,  I  found  time  enough,  by  rising  some 
two  or  three  hours  before  breakfast,  to  explore  the  Red 
Sandstones  on  the  southern  side  of  the  loch.  They  lie  in 
this  bar  of  the  frame,  —  to  return  once  more  to  my  old 
illustration,  —  as  if  it  had  been  cut  out  of  a  piece  of  cross- 
grained  deal,  in  which  the  annular  bands,  instead  of  rang- 
ing lengthwise,  ran  diagonally  from  side  to  side ;  stratum 
leans  over  stratum,  dipping  towards  the  west  at  an  angle 
of  about  thirty  degrees ;  and  as  in  a  continuous  line  of 
more  than  seven  miles  there  seem  no  breaks  or  repetitions 
in  the  strata,  the  thickness  of  the  deposit  must  be  enor- 
mous, —  not  less,  I  should  suppose,  than  from  six  to  eight 
thousand  feet.  Like  the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstones  of 
Cromarty  and  Moray,  the  red  arenaceous  strata  occur  in 
thick  beds,  separated  from  each  other  by  bands  of  a  gray- 
ish-colored stratified  clay,  on  the  planes  of  which  I  could 
trace  with  great  distinctness  ripple  markings ;  but  in  vain 
did  I  explore  their  numerous  folds  for  the  plates,  scales, 
and  fucoid  impressions  which  abound  in  the  gray  argilla- 
ceous beds  of  the  shores  of  the  Moray  and  Cromarty 
Friths.  It  would,  however,  be  rash  to  pronounce  them 
non-fossiliferous,  after  the  hasty  search  of  a  single  morn- 
ing, —  unpardonably  so  in  one  who  had  spent  very  many 
mornings  in  putting  to  the  question  the  gray  stratified 
beds  of  Ross  and  Cromarty,  ere  he  succeeded  in  extorting 
from  them  the  secret  of  their  organic  riches 

We  set  out  about  half-past  ten  for  Scuir  More,  through 
the  Red  Sandstone  valley  in  which  Loch  Scresort  termi- 
nates, with  one  of  Mr.  Swanson's  people,  a  young  active 
lad  of  twenty,  for  our  guide.  In  passing  upwards  for 
nearly  a  mile  along  the  stream  that  falls  into  the  upper 
part  of  the  loch,  and  lays  bare  the  strata,  we  saw  no 


142  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY  J    OR, 

change  in  the  character  of  the  sandstone.  Red  arena- 
ceous beds  of  great  thickness  alternate  with  grayish-col- 
orexl  bands,  composed  of  a  ripple-marked  micaceous  slate 
and  a  stratified  clay.  For  a  depth  of  full  three  thousand 
feet,  and  I  know  not  how  much  more,  —  for  I  lacked  time 
to  trace  it  further,  —  the  deposit  presents  no  other  variety: 
the  thick  red  bed  of  at  least  a  hundred  yards  succeeds  the 
thin  gray  band  of  from  three  to  six  feet,  and  is  succeeded 
by  a  similar  gray  band  in  turn.  The  ripple-marks  I  found 
as  sharply  relieved  in  some  of  the  folds  as  if  the  wavy 
undulations  to  which  they  owed  their  origin  had  passed 
over  them  within  the  hour.  The  comparatively  small  size 
of  their  alternating  ridges  and  furrows  give  evidence  that 
the  waters  beneath  which  they  had  formed  had  been  of  no 
very  profound  depth.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  valley, 
which  is  bare,  trackless,  and  solitary,  with  a  high  monoto- 
nous sandstone  ridge  bounding  it  on  the  one  side,  and  a 
line  of  gloomy  trap-hills  rising  over  it  on  the  other,  the 
edges  of  the  strata,  where  they  protrude  through  the  min- 
gled heath  and  moss,  exhibit  the  mysterious  scratchings 
and  polishings  now  so  generally  connected  with  the  gla- 
cial theory  of  Agassiz.  The  scratchings  run  in  nearly  the 
line  of  the  valley,  which  exhibits  no  trace  of  moraines ; 
and  they  seem  to  have  been  produced  rather  by  the  opera- 
tion of  those  extensively  developed  causes,  whatever  their 
nature,  that  have  at  once  left  their  mark  on  the  sides  and 
summits  of  some  of  our  highest  hills,  and  the  rocks  and 
boulders  of  some  of  our  most  extended  plains,  than  by  the 
agency  of  forces  limited  to  the  locality.  They  testify, 
Agassiz  would  perhaps  say,  not  regarding  the  existence  of 
some  local  glacier  that  descended  from  the  higher  grounds 
into  the  valley,  but  respecting  the  existence  of  the  great 
polar  glacier.  I  felt,  however,  in  this  bleak  and  solitary 
hollow,  with  the  grooved  and  polished  platforms  at  my 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         143 

feet,  stretching  away  amid  the  heath,  like  flat  tombstones 
in  a  graveyard,  that  I  had  arrived  at  one  geologic  inscrip- 
tion to  which  I  still  wanted  the  key.  The  vesicular  struc- 
ture of  the  traps  on  the  one  hand,  identical  with  that  of  so 
many  of  our  modern  lavas,  —  the  ripple-markings  of  the 
arenaceous  beds  on  the  other,  indistinguishable  from  those 
of  the  sea-banks  on  our  coasts,  —  the  upturned  strata  and 
the  overlying  trap,  —  told  all  their  several  stories  of  fire, 
or  wave,  or  terrible  convulsion,  and  told  them  simply  and 
clearly ;  but  here  was  a  story  not  clearly  told.  It  sum- 
moned up  doubtful,  ever-shifting  visions,  —  now  of  a  vast 
ice  continent,  abutting  on  this  far  isle  of  the  Hebrides 
from  the  Pole,  and  trampling  heavily  over  it,  —  now  of  the 
wild  rush  of  a  turbid,  mountain-high  flood  breaking  in 
from  the  west,  and  hurling  athwart  the  torn  surface,  rocks, 
and  stones,  and  clay,  —  now  of  a  dreary  ocean  rising  high 
along  the  hills,  and  bearing  onward  with  its  winds  and 
currents,  huge  icebergs,  that  now  brushed  the  mountain- 
sides, and  now  grated  along  the  bottom  of  the  submerged 
valleys.  The  inscription  on  the  polished  surfaces,  with  its 
careless  mixture  of  groove  and  scratch,  is  an  inscription  of 
very  various  readings. 

We  passed  along  a  transverse  hollow,  and  then  began 
to  ascend  a  hill-side,  from  the  ridge  of  which  the  water 
sheds  to  the  opposite  shore  of  the  island,  and  on  which  we 
catch  our  first  glimpse  of  Scuir  More,  standing  up  over  the 
sea,  like  a  pyramid  shorn  of  its  top.  A  brown  lizard, 
nearly  five  inches  in  length,  startled  by  our  approach,  ran 
hurriedly  across  the  path ;  and  our  guide,  possessed  by  the 
general  Highland  belief  that  the  creature  is  poisonous,  and 
injures  cattle,  struck  at  it  with  a  switch,  and  cut  it  in  two 
immediately  behind  the  hinder  legs.  The  upper  half,  con- 
taining all  that  anatomists  regard  as  the  vitals,  heart, 
brain,  and  viscera,  all  the  main  nerves,  and  all  the  larger 


144  THE    CRUISE    OF    THE    BETSEY;    OR, 

arteries,  lay  stunned  by  the  blow,  as  if  dead ;  nor  did  it 
manifest  any  signs  of  vitality  so  long  as  we  remained 
beside  it;  whereas  the  lower  half,  as  if  the  whole  life  of 
the  animal  had  retired  into  ?Y,  continued  dancing  upon  the 
moss  for  a  full  minute  after,  like  a  young  eel  scooped  out 
of  some  stream,  and  thrown  upon  the  bank ;  and  then  lay 
wriggling  and  palpitating  for  about  half  a  minute  more. 
There  are  few  things  more  inexplicable  in  the  province  of 
the  naturalist  than  the  phenomenon  of  what  may  be 
termed  divided  life,  —  vitality  broken  into  two,  and  yet 
continuing  to  exist  as  vitality  in  both  the  dissevered 
pieces.  We  see  in  the  nobler  animals  mere  glimpses  of 
the  phenomenon,  —  mere  indications  of  it,  doubtfully 
apparent  for  at  most  a  few  minutes.  The  blood  drawn 
from  the  human  arm  by  the  lancet  continues  to  live  in  the 
cup  until  it  has  cooled  and  begun  to  coagulate ;  and  when 
head  and  body  have  parted  company  under  the  guillotine, 
both  exhibit  for  a  brief  space  such  unequivocal  signs  of 
life,  that  the  question  arose  in  France  during  the  horrors 
of  the  Revolution,  whether  there  might  not  be  some  o;lim- 

7  O  O 

mering  of  consciousness  attendant  at  the  same  time  on  the 
fearfully  opening  and  shutting  eyes  and  mouth  of  the  one, 
and  the  beating  heart  and  jerking  neck  of  the  other.  The 
loAver  we  descend  in  the  scale  of  being,  the  more  striking 
the  instances  which  we  receive  of  this  divisibility  of  the 
vital  principle.  I  have  seen  the  two  halves  of  the  heart  of 
a  ray  pulsating  for  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour  after  they  had 
been  separated  from  the  body  and  from  each  other.  The 
blood  circulates  in  the  hind  leg  of  a  frog  for  many  minutes 
after  the  removal  of  the  heart,  which  meanwhile  keeps  up 
an  independent  motion  of  its  own.  Vitality  can  be  so 
divided  in  the  earthworm,  that,  as  demonstrated  by  the 
experiments  of  Spalanzani,  each  of  the  severed  parts  car- 
ries life  enough  away  to  set  it  up  as  an  independent  ani- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    145 

mal ;  while  the  polypus,  a  creature  of  still  more  imperfect 
organization,  and  with  the  vivacious  principle  more 
equally  diffused  over  it,  may  be  multiplied  by  its  pieces 
nearly  as  readily  as  a  gooseberry  bush  by  its  slips.  It  was 
sufficiently  curious,  however,  to  see,  in  the  case  of  this 
brown  lizard,  the  least  vital  half  of  the  creature  so  much 
more  vivacious,  apparently,  than  the  half  which  contained 
the  heart  and  brain.  It  is  not  improbable,  however,  that 
the  presence  of  these  organs  had  only  the  effect  of  render- 
ing the  upper  portion  which  contained  them  more  capable 
of  being  thrown  into  a  state  of  insensibility.  A  blow 
dealt  one  of  the  vertebrata  on  the  head  at  once  renders  it 
insensible.  It  is  after  this  mode  the  fisherman  kills  the 
salmon  captured  in  his  wear,  and  a  single  blow,  when  well 
directed,  is  always  sufficient ;  but  no  single  blow  has  the 
same  effect  on  the  earthworm ;  and  here  it  was  vitality  in 
the  inferior  portion  of  the  reptile,  —  the  earthworm  por- 
tion of  it,  if  I  may  so  speak,  —  that  refused  to  participate 
in  the  state  of  syncope  into  which  the  vitality  of  the  supe- 
rior portion  had  been  thrown.  The  nice  and  delicate 
vitality  of  the  brain  seems  to  impart  to  the  whole  system 
in  connection  with  it  an  aptitude  for  dying  suddenly,  —  a 
susceptibility  of  instant  death,  which  would  be  wanting 
without  it.  The  heart  of  the  rabbit  continues  to  beat 
regularly  long  after  the  brain  has  been  removed  by  careful 
excision,  if  respiration  be  artificially  kept  up ;  but  if, 
instead  of  amputating  the  head,  the  brain  be  crushed  in  its 
place  by  a  sudden  blow  of  a  hammer,  the  heart  ceases  its 
motion  at  once.  And  such  seemed  to  be  the  principle 
illustrated  here.  But  why  the  agonized  dancing  on  the 
sward  of  the  inferior  part  of  the  reptile  ?  —  why  its  after 
painful  writhing  and  wriggling?  The  young  eel  scooped 
from  the  stream,  whose  motions  it  resembled,  is  impressed 
by  terror,  and  can  feel  pain ;  was  it  also  impressed  by  ter- 
13 


146        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR. 

ror,  or  susceptible  of  suffering?  We  see  in  the  case  of 
both  exactly  the  same  signs,  —  the  dancing,  the  writhing, 
the  wriggling;  but  are  we  to  interpret  them  after  the 
same  manner?  In  the  small  red-headed  earthworm 
divided  by  Spalanzani,  that  in  three  months  got  upper 
extremities  to  its  lower  part,  and  lower  extremities,  in  as 
many  weeks,  to  its  upper  part,  the  dividing  blow  must 
have  dealt  duplicate  feelings,  —  pain  and  terror  to  the  por- 
tion below,  and  pain  and  terror  to  the  portion  above,  —  so 
far,  at  least,  as  a  creature  so  low  in  the  scale  was  suscepti- 
ble of  these  feelings ;  but  are  we  to  hold  that  the  leaping, 
wriggling  tail  of  the  reptil»  possessed  in  any  degree  a  sim- 
ilar susceptibility  ?  I  can  propound  the  riddle,  but  who 
shall  resolve  it  ?  It  may  be  added,  that  this  brown  lizard 
was  the  only  recent  saurian  I  chanced  to  see  in  the  Heb- 
rides, and  that,  though  large  for  its  "kind,  its  whole  bulk 
did  not  nearly  equal  that  of  a  single  vertebral  joint  of  the 
fossil  saurians  of  Eigg.  The  reptile,  since  his  deposition 
from  the  first  place  in  the  scale  of  creation,  has  sunk  sadly 
in  those  parts :  the  ex-monarch  has  become  a  low  plebeian. 
We  came  down  upon  the  coast  through  a  swampy  val- 
ley, terminating  in  the  interior  in  a  frowning  wall  of 
basalt,  and  bounded  on  the  south,  where  it  opens  to  the 
sea,  by  the  Scuir  More.  The  Scuir  is  a  precipitous  moun- 
tain, that  rises  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hundred  feet  direct 
over  the  beach.  M'Culloch  describes  it  as  inaccessible, 
and  states  that  it  is  only  among  the  debris  at  its  base  that 
its  heliotropes  can  be  procured;  but  the  distinguished 
mineralogist  must  have  had  considerably  less  skill  in 
climbing  rocks  than  in  describing  them,  as,  indeed,  some 
of  his  descriptions,  though  generally  very  adrnii-able,  abun- 
dantly testify.  I  am  inclined  to  infer  from  his  book,  after 
having  passed  over  much  of  the  ground  which  he 
describes,  that  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  the  type  so 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE    HEBRIDES.          147 

well  hit  off  by  Burns  in  his  portrait  of  Captain  Grose,  — 
round,  rosy,  short-legged,  quick  of  eye  but  slow  of  foot, 
quite  as  indifferent  a  climber  as  Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie,  and 
disposed  at  times,  like  the  elderly  gentleman  drawn  by 
Crabbe,  to  prefer  the  view  at  the  hill-foot  to  the  prospect 
from  its  summit.  I  found  little  difficulty  in  scaling  the 
sides  of  Scuir  More  for  a  thousand  feet  upwards,  —  in  one 
part  by  a  route  rarely  attempted  before,  —  and  in  ensconc- , 
ing  myself  among  the  bloodstones.  They  occur  in  the 
amygdaloidal  trap  of  Avhich  the  upper  part  of  the  hill  is 
mainly  composed,  in  great  numbers,  and  occasionally  in 
bulky  masses ;  but  it  is  rare  to  find  other  than  small  speci- 
mens that  would  be  recognized  as  of  value  by  the  lapi- 
daiy.  The  inclosing  rock  must  have  been  as  thickly  vesi- 
cular in  its  original  state  as  the  scoria  of  a  glass-house ; 
and  all  the  vesicles,  large  and  small,  like  the  retorts  and 
receivers  of  a  laboratory,  have  been  vessels  in  which  some 
curious  chemical  process  has  been  carried  on.  Many  of 
them  we  find  filled  with  a  white  semi-translucent  or 
opaque  chalcedony ;  many  more  with  a  pure  green  earth, 
which,  where  exposed  to  the  bleaching  influences  of  the 
weather,  exhibits  a  fine  verdigris  hue,  but  which  in  the 
fresh  fracture  is  generally  of  an  olive  green,  or  of  a  brown- 
ish or  reddish  color.  I  have  never  yet  seen  a  rock  in 
which  this  earth  was  so  abundant  as  in  the  amygdaloid  of 
Scuir  More.  For  yards  together  in  some  places  we  see  it 
projecting  from  the  surface  in  round  globules,  that  veiy 
much  resemble  green  peas,  and  that  occur  as  thickly  in 
the  inclosing  mass  as  pebbles  in  an  Old  Red  Sandstone 
conglomerate.  The  heliotrope  has  formed  among  it  in 
centres,  to  which  the  chalcedony  seems  to  have  been 
drawn,  as  if  by  molecular  attraction.  We  find  a  mass, 
varying  from  the  size  of  a  walnut  to  that  of  a  man's  head, 
occupying  some  larger  vesicle  or  crevice  of  the  amygda- 


148        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

loid,  and  all  the  smaller  vesicles  around  it,  for  an  inch  or 
two,  filled  with  what  we  may  venture  to  term  satellite 
heliotropes,  some  of  them  as  minute  as  grains  of  wild  mus- 
tard, and  all  of  them  more  or  less  earthy,  generally  in 
proportion  to  their  distance  from  the  first  formed  helio- 
trope in  the  middle.  No  one  can  see  them  in  their  place 
in  the  rock,  with  the  abundant  green  earth  all  around,  and 
the  chalcedony,  in  its  uncolored  state,  filling  up  so  many 
of  the  larger  cavities,  without  acquiescing  in  the  conclu- 
sion respecting  the  origin  of  the  gem  first  suggested  by 
Werner,  and  afterwards  adopted  and  illustrated  by  M'Cul- 
loch.  The  heliotrope  is  merely  a  chalcedony,  stained  in 
the  forming  with  an  infusion  of  green  earth,  as  the  colored 
waters  in  the  apothecary's  window  are  stained  by  the  infu- 
sions, vegetable  and  mineral,  from  which  they  derive 
their  ornamental  character.  The  red  mottlings  which  so 
heighten  the  beauty  of  the  stone  occur  in  comparatively 
few  of  the  specimens  of  Scuir  More.  They  are  minute 
jasperous  formations,  independent  of  the  inclosing  mass; 
and,  from  their  resemblance  to  streaks  and  spots  of  blood, 
suggest  the  name  by  which  the  heliotrope  is  popularly 
known.  I  succeeded  in  making  up,  among  the  crags,  a 
set  of  specimens  curiously  illustrative  of  the  origin  of  the 
gem.  One  specimen  consists  of  white,  uncolored  chalce- 
dony; a  second,  of  a  rich  verdigris-hued  green  earth;  a 
third,  of  chalcedony  barely  tinged  with  green ;  a  fourth, 
of  chalcedony  tinged  just  a  shade  more  deeply;  a  fifth, 
tinged  more  deeply  still ;  a  sixth,  of  a  deep  green  on  one 
side,  and  scarce  at  all  colored  on  the  other;  and  a  sev- 
enth, dark  and  richly  toned,  —  a  true  bloodstone,  —  thickly 
streaked  and  mottled  with  red  jasper.  In  the  chemical 
process  that  rendered  the  Scuir  More  a  mountain  of  gems 
there  were  two  deteriorating  circumstances,  which  oper- 
ated to  the  disadvantage  of  its  larger  heliotropes:  the 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.         149 

green  earth,  as  if  insiiffieiently  stirred  in  the  mixing,  has 
gathered,  in  many  of  them,  into  minute  soft  globules,  like 
air-bubbles  in  glass,  that  render  them  valueless  for  the 
purposes  of  the  lapidary,  by  filling  them  all  over  with  little 
cavities ;  and  in  not  a  few  of  the  others,  an  infiltration  of 
lime,  that  refused  to  incorporate  with  the  chalcedonic 
mass,  exists  in  thin  glassy  films  and  veins,  that,  from  their 
comparative  softness,  have  a  nearly  similar  effect  Avith  the 
impalpable  green  earth  in  roughing  the  surface  under  the 
burnisher. 

We  find  figured  by  M'Culloch,  in  his  "  Western  Islands," 
the  internal  cavity  of  a  pebble  of  Scuir  More,  which  he 
picked  up  on  the  beach  below,  and  which  had  been  formed 
evidently  within  one  of  the  larger  vesicles  of  the  amygdaloid. 
He  describes  it  as  curiously  illustrative  of  a  various  chemis- 
try; the  outer  crust  is  composed  of  a  pale-zoned  agate, 
inclosing  a  cavity,  from  the  upper  side  of  which  there 
depends  a  group  of  chalcedonic  stalactites,  some  of  them,  as 
in  ancient  spar  caves,  reaching  to  the  floor ;  and  bearing  on 
its  under  side  a  large  crystal  of  carbonate  of  lime,  that  the 
longer  stalactites  pass  through.  In  the  vesicle  in  which  this 
hollow  pebble  was  formed  three  consecutive  processes  must 
have  gone  on.  First,  a  process  of  infiltration  coated  the 
interior  all  around  with  layer  after  layei*,  now  of  one  mineral 
substance,  now  of  another,  as  a  plasterer  coats  over  the  sides 
and  ceiling  of  a  room  with  successive  layers  of  lime,  putty, 
and  stucco ;  and  had  this  process  gone  on,  the  whole  cell 
would  have  been  filled  with  a  pale-zoned  agate.  But  it 
ceased,  and  a  new  process  began.  A  chalcedonic  infiltration 
gradually  entered  from  above ;  and,  instead  of  coating  over 
the  walls,  roof,  and  floor,  it  hardened  into  a  group  of  spear- 
like  stalactites,  that  lengthened  by  slow  degrees,  till  some 
of  them  had  traversed  the  entire  cavity  from  top  to  bottom. 
And  then  this  second  process  ceased  like  the  first,  and  a 
13* 


150  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY)    OR, 

third  commenced.  An  infiltration  of  lime  took  place ;  and 
the  minute  calcareous  molecules,  under  the  influence  of  the 
law  of  crystallization,  built  themselves  up  on  the  floor  into  a 
large  smooth-sided  rhomb,  resembling  a  closed  sarcophagus 
resting  in  the  middle  of  some  Egyptian  cemetery.  And 
then,  the  limestone  crystal  completed,  there  ensued  no  after 
change.  As  shown  by  some  other  specimens,  however,  there 
was  a  yet  farther  process :  a  pure  quartzose  deposition  took 
place,  that  coated  not  a  few  of  the  calcareous  rhombs  with 
sprigs  of  rock-crystal.  I  found  in  the  Scuir  More  several 
cellular  agates  in  which  similar  processes  had  gone  on,  — 
none  of  them  quite  so  fine,  however,  as  the  one  figured  by 
M'Culloch;  but  there  seemed  no  lack  of  evidence  regarding 
the  strange  and  multifarious  chemistry  that  had  been  carried 
on  in  the  vesicular  cavities  of  this  mountain,  as  in  the  retorts 
of  some  vast  laboratory.  Here  was  a  vesicle  filled  with 
green  earth, —  there  a  vesicle  filled  with  calcareous  spar, — 
yonder  a  .vesicle  crusted  round  on  a  thin  chalcedonic  shell 
with  rock-crystal,  —  in  one  cavity  an  agate  had  been  elabo- 
rated, in  another  a  heliotrope,  in  a  third  a  milk-white 
chalcedony,  in  a  fourth  a  jasper.  On  what  principle,  and 
under  what  direction,  have  results  so  various  taken  place  in 
vesicles  of  the  same  rock,  that  in  many  instances  occur  scarce 
half  an  inch  apart  ?  Why,  for  instance,  should  that  vesicle 
have  elaborated  only  green  earth,  and  the  vesicle  separated 
from  it  by  a  partition  barely  a  line  in  thickness,  have  elabo- 
rated only  chalcedony  ?  Why  should  this  chamber  contain 
only  a  quartzose  compound  of  oxygen  and  silica,  and  that 
second  chamber  beside  it  contain  only  a  calcareoiis  com- 
pound of  lime  and  carbonic  acid?  What  law  directed 
infiltrations  so  diverse  to  seek  out  for  themselves  vesicles  in 
such  close  neighborhood,  and  to  keep,  in  so  many  instances, 
each  to  his  own  vesicle  ?  I  can  but  state  the  problem,  — not 
solve  it.  The  groups  of  heliotropes  clustered  each  around 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.  151 

its  bulky  centrical  mass  seem  to  show  that  the  principle  of 
molecular  attraction  may  be  operative  in  very  dense  mediae, 
—  in  a  hard  araygdaloidal  trap  even;  and  it  seems  not 
improbable,  that  to  this  law,  which  draws  atom  to  its 
kindred  atom,  as  clansmen  of  old  used  to  speed  at  the  mus- 
tering signal  to  their  gathering  place,  the  various  chemistry 
of  the  vesicles  may  owe  its  variety. 

I  shall  attempt  stating  the  chemical  problem  furnished  by 
the  vesicles  here  in  a  mechanical  form.  Let  us  suppose  that 
every  vesicle  was  a  chamber  furnished  with  a  door,  and  that 
beside  every  door  there  watched,  as  in  the  draught  doors  of 
our  coal-pits,  some  one  to  open  and  shut  it,  as  circumstances 
might  require.  Let  us  suppose  further,  that  for  a  certain 
time  an  infusion  of  green  earth  pervaded  the  surrounding 
mass,  and  percolated  through  it,  and  that  every  door  was 
opened  to  receive  a  portion  of  the  infusion.  We  find  that 
no  vesicle  wants  its  coating  of  this  earthy  mineral.  The 
coating  received,  however,  one-half  the  doors  shut,  while 
the  other  half  remained  agap,  and  filled  with  green  earth 
entirely.  Next  followed  a  series  of  alternate  infusions  of 
chalcedony,  jasper,  and  quartz;  many  doors  opened  and 
received  some  two  or  three  coatings,  that  form  around  the 
vesicles  skull-like  shells  of  agate,  and  then  shut;  a  few 
remained  open,  and  became  as  entirely  occupied  with  agate 
as  many  of  the  previous  ones  had  become  filled  with  green 
earth.  Then  an  ample  infusion  of  chalcedony  pervaded  the 
mass.  Numerous  dooi'S  again  opened ;  some  took  in  a  por- 
tion of  the  chalcedony,  and  then  shut;  some  remained  open, 
and  became  filled  with  it ;  and  many  more  that  had  been 
previously  filled  by  the  green  earth  opened  their  doors 
again,  and  the  chalcedony  pervading  the  green  porous  mass, 
converted  it  into  heliotrope.  Then  an  infusion  of  lime  took 
place.  Doors  opened,  many  of  which  had  been  hitherto 
shut,  save  for  a  short  time,  when  the  green  earth  infusion 


152  THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;    OR, 

obtained,  and  became  filled  with  lime  ;  other  doors  opened 
for  a  brief  space,  and  received  lime  enough  to  form  a  few 
crystals.  Last  of  all,  there  was  a  pure  quartzose  infusion, 
and  doors  opened,  some  for  a  longer  time,  some  for  a  shorter, 
just  as  on  previous  occasions.  Now,  by  mechanical  means 
of  this  character,  —  by  such  an  arrangement  of  successive 
infusions,  and  such  a  device  of  shutting  and  opening  of 
doors,  —  the  phenomena  exhibited  by  the  vesicles  could  be 
produced.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  working  the  problem 
mechanically,  if  we  be  allowed  to  assume  in  our  data  succes- 
sive infusions,  well-fitted  doors,  and  watchful  door-keepers ; 
and  if  any  one  can  work  it  chemically,  —  certainly  without 
door-keepers,  but  with  such  doors  and  such  infusions  as  he 
can  show  to  have  existed, — he  shall  have  cleared  up  the 
mystery  of  the  Scuir  More.  I  have  given  their  various 
cargoes  to  all  its  many  vesicles  by  mechanical  means,  at  no 
expense  of  ingenuity  whatever.  Are  there  any  of  my 
readers  prepared  to  give  it  to  them  by  means  purely 
chemical  ? 

There  is  a  solitary  house  in  the  opening  of  the  valley,  over 
which  the  Scuir  More  stands  sentinel,  —  a  house  so  solitary, 
that  the  entire  breadth  of  the  island  intervenes  between  it 
and  the  nearest  human  dwelling.  It  is  inhabited  by  a  shep- 
herd and  his  wife,  —  the  sole  representatives  in  the  valley 
of  a  numerous  population,  long  since  expatriated  to  make 
way  for  a  few  flocks  of  sheep,  but  whose  ranges  of  little  fields 
may  still  be  seen  green  amid  the  heath  on  both  sides,  for 
nearly  a  mile  upwards  from  the  opening.  After  descending 
along  the  precipices  of  the  Scuir,  we  struck  across  the  valley, 
and,  on  scaling  the  opposite  slope  sat  down  on  the  summit 
to  rest  us,  about  a  hundred  yards  over  the  house  of  the 
shepherd.  He  had  seen  us  from  below,  when  engaged 
among  the  bloodstones,  and  had  seen,  withal,  that  we  were 
not  coming  his  way ;  and,  "  on  hospitable  thoughts  intent," 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         153 

he  climbed  to  where  we  sat,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  she 
bearing  a  vast  bowl  of  milk,  and  he  a  basket  of  bread  and 
cheese.  And  we  found  the  refreshment  most  seasonable, 
after  our  long  hours  of  toil,  and  with  a  rough  journey  still 
before  us.  It  is  an  excellent  circumstance,  that  hospitality 
grows  best  where  it  is  most  needed.  In  the  thick  of  men  it 
dwindles  and  disappears,  like  fruits  in  the  thick  of  a  wood ; 
but  where  man  is  planted  sparsely,  it  blossoms  and  matures, 
like  apples  on  a  standard  or  espalier.  It  flourishes  where 
the  inn  and  the  lodging-house  cannot  exist,  and  dies  out 
where  they  thrive  and  multiply. 

We  reached  the  cross  valley  in  the  interior  of  the  island 
about  half  an  hour  before  sunset.  The  evening  was  clear, 
calm,  golden-tinted ;  even  wild  heaths  and  rude  rocks  had 
assumed  a  flush  of  transient  beauty ;  and  the  emerald-green 
patches  on  the  hill-sides,  barred  by  the  plough  lengthwise, 
diagonally,  and  transverse,  had  borrowed  an  aspect  of  soft 
and  velvety  richness,  from  the  mellowed  light  and  the  broad- 
ening shadows.  All  was  solitary.  We  could  see  among 
the  deserted  fields  the  grass-grown  foundations  of  cottages 
razed  to  the  ground ;  but  the  valley,  more  desolate  than 
that  which  we  had  left,  had  not  even  its  single  inhabited 
dwelling :  it  seemed  as  if  man  had  done  with  it  forever. 
The  island,  eighteen  years  before,  had  been  divested  of  its 
inhabitants,  amounting  at  the  time  to  rather  more  than 
four  hundred  souls,  to  make  way  for  one  sheep-farmer  and 
eight  thousand  sheep.  All  the  aborigines  of  Rum  crossed 
the  Atlantic;  and  at  the  close  of  1828,  the  entire  population 
consisted  of  but  the  sheep-farmer,  and  a  few  shepherds,  his 
servants ;  the  island  of  Rum  reckoned  up  scarce  a  single 
family  at  this  period  for  every  five  square  miles  of  area 
which  it  contained.  But  depopulation  on  so  extreme  a 
scale  was  found  inconvenient ;  the  place  had  been  rendered 
too  thoroughly  a  desert  for  the  comfort  of  the  occupant ; 


154  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

and  on  the  occasion  of  a  clearing  which  took  place  shortly 
after  in  Skye,  he  accommodated  some. ten  or  twelve  of  the 
ejected  families  with  sites  for  cottages,  and  pasturage  for  a 
few  cows,  on  the  bit  of  morass  beside  Loch  Scresort,  on 
which  I  had  seen  their  humble  dwellings.  But  the  Avhole 
of  the  once-peopled  interior  remains  a  wilderness,  without 
inhabitant, — all  the  more  lonely  in  its  aspect  from  the 
circumstance  that  the  solitary  valleys,  with  their  plough- 
furrowed  patches,  and  their  ruined  heaps  of  stone,  open 
upon  shores  every  whit  as  solitary  as  themselves,  and  that 
the  wide  untrodden  sea  stretches  drearily  around.  The 
armies  of  the  insect  world  were  sporting  in  the  light 
this  evening  by  millions;  a  brown  stream  that  runs  through 
the  valley  yielded  an  incessant  popling  sound,  from  the 
myriads  of  fish  that  were  ceaselessly  leaping  in  the  pools, 
beguiled  by  the  quick  glancing  wings  of  green  and  gold 
that  fluttered  over  them  ;  along  a  distant  hill-side  there  ran 
what  seemed  the  ruins  of  a  gray-stone  fence,  erected,  says 
tradition,  in  a  remote  age,  to  facilitate  the  hunting  of  the 
deer  ;  there  were  fields  on  which  the  heath  and  moss  of 
the  surrounding  moorlands  were  fast  encroaching,  that  had 
borne  many  a  successive  harvest  ;  and  prostrate  cottages, 
that  had  been  the  scenes  of  christenings,  and  bridals,  and 
blythe  new-year's  days  ;  —  all  seemed  to  bespeak  the  place 
a  fitting  habitation  for  man,  in  which  not  only  the  necessa- 
ries, but  also  a  few  of  the  luxuries  of  life,  might  be  pro- 
cured ;  but  in  the  entire  prospect  not  a  man  nor  a  man's 
dwelling  could  the  eye  command.  The  landscape  was  one 
without  figures.  I  do  not  much  like  extermination  carried 
out  so  thoroughly  and  on  system; — it  seems  bad  policy  ; 
and  I  have  not  succeeded  in  thinking  any  the  better  of  it 
though  assured  by  economists  that  there  are  more  than 
people  enough  in  Scotland  still.  There  are,  I  believe,  more 
than  enough  in  our  workhouses, — more  than  enough  on  our 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.          155 

pauper-rolls, — more  than  enough  huddled  up,  disreputable, 
useless,  and  unhappy,  in  the  miasmatic  alleys  and  typhoid 
courts  of  our  large  towns ;  but  I  have  yet  to  learn  how  argu- 
ments for  local  depopulation  are  to  be  drawn  from  facts 
such  as  these.  A  brave  and  hardy  people,  favorably  placed 
for  the  development  of  all  that  is  excellent  in  human  nature, 
form  the  glory  and  strength  of  a  country  ; —  a  people  sunk 
into  an  abyss  of  degradation  and  misery,  and  in  which  it 
is  the  Avhole  tendency  of  external  circumstances  to  sink 
them  yet  deeper,  constitute  its  weakness  and  its  shame; 
and  I  cannot  quite  see  on  what  principle  the  ominous  in- 
crease which  is  taking  place  among  us  in  the  worse  class,  is 
to  form  our  solace  or  apology  for  the  wholesale  expatria- 
tion of  the  better.  It  did  not  seem  as  if  the  depopulation 
of  Rum  had  tended  much  to  any  one's  advantage.  The 
single  sheep-farmer  who  had  occupied  the  holdings  of  so 
many  had  been  unfortunate  in  his  speculations,  and  had  left 
the  island :  the  proprietor,  his  landlord,  seemed  to  have 
been  as  little  fortunate  as  the  tenant,  for  the  island  itself 
was  in  the  market ;  and  a  report  went  current  at  the  time, 
that  it  was  on  the  eve  of  being  purchased  by  some  wealthy 
Englishman,  who  purposed  converting  it  into  a  deer-forest. 
How  strange  a  cycle!  Uninhabited  originally  save  by  wild 
animals,  it  became  at  an  early  pei'iod  a  home  of  men,  who, 
as  the  gray  wall  on  the  hill-side  testified,  derived,  in  part 
at  least,  their  sustenance  from  the  chase.  They  broke  in 
from  the  waste  the  furrowed  patches  on  the  slopes  of  the 
valleys, — they  reared  herds  of  cattle  and  flocks  of  sheep, — 
their  number  increased  to  nearly  five  hundred  souls,  —  they 
enjoyed  the  average  happiness  of  human  creatures  in  the 
present  imperfect  state  of  being, — they  contributed  their 
portion  of  hardy  and  vigorous  manhood  to  the  armies  of 
the  country, — and  a  few  of  their  more  adventurous  spirits, 
impatient  of  the  narrow  bounds  which  confined  them,  and 


156  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  :     OR 

a  course  of  life  little  varied  by  incident,  emigrated  to 
America.  Then  came  the  change  of  system  so  general  in 
the  Highlands ;  and  the  island  lost  all  its  original  inhabi- 
tants, on  a  wool  and  mutton  speculation, — inhabitants,  the 
descendants  of  men  who  had  chased  the  deer  on  its  hills 
five  hundred  years  before,  and  who,  though  they  recognized 
some  wild  island  lord  as  their  superior,  and  did  him  service, 
had  regarded  the  place  as  indisputably  their  own.  And 
now  yet  another  change  was  on  the  eve  of  ensuing,  and  the 
island  was  to  return  to  its  original  state,  as  a  home  of  wild 
animals,  where  a  few  hunters  from  the  mainland  might  en- 
joy the  chase  for  a  month  or  two  every  twelvemonth,  but 
which  could  form  no  permanent  place  of  human  abode. 
Once  more,  a  strange  and  surely  most  melancholy  cycle  !• 

There  was  light  enough  left,  as  we  reached  the  upper 
part  of  Loch  Scresort,  to  show  us  a  shoal  of  small  silver- 
coated  trout,  leaping  by  scores  at  the  effluence  of  the  little 
stream  along  which  we  had  set  out  in  the  morning  on  our 
expedition.  There  was  a  net  stretched  across  where  the 
play  was  thickest ;  and  we  learned  that  the  haul  of  the 
previous  tide  had  amounted  to  several  hundreds.  On 
reaching  the  Betsey,  we  found  a  pail  and  basket  laid  against 
the  companion-head, — the  basket  containing  about  two 
dozen  small  trout, — the  minister's  unsolicited  teind  of  the 
morning  draught ;  the  pail  filled  with  razor-fish  of  great 
size.  The  people  of  my  friend  are  far  from  wealthy ;  there 
is  scarce  any  circulating  medium  in  Rum  ;  and  the  cottars 
in  Eigg  contrive  barely  enough  to  earn  at  the  harvest  in 
the  Lowlands  money  sufficient  to  clear  with  their  landlord 
at  rent-day.  Their  contributions  for  ecclesiastical  pin-poses 
make  no  great  figure,  therefore,  in  the  lists  of  the  Susten- 
tation  Fund.  But  of  what  they  have  they  give  willingly 
and  in  a  kindly  spirit ;  and  if  baskets  of  small  trout,  or 
pailfuls  of  spout-fish,  went  current  in  the  Free  Church, 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          157 

there  would,  I  am  certain,  be  a  per  centage  of  both  the  fish 
and  the  mollusc,  derived  from  the  Small  Isles,  in  the  half- 
yearly  sustentation  dividends.  We  found  the  supply  of 
both, — especially  as  provisions  were  beginning  to  run  short 
in  the  lockers  of  the  Betsey, — quite  deserving  of  our  gra- 
titude. The  razor-fish  had  been  brought  us  by  the  worthy 
catechist  of  the  island.  He  had  gone  to  the  ebb  in  our 
special  behalf,  and  had  spent  a  tide  in  laboriously  filling  the 
pail  with  these  "treasures  hid  in  the  sand;"  thoroughly 
aware,  like  the  old  exiled  puritan,  who  eked  out  his  meals 
in  a  time  of  scarcity  with  the  oysters  of  New  England,  that 
even  the  razor-fish,  under  this  head,  is  included  in  the 
promises.  There  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  razor-fish  of  Rum 
that  I  have  not  marked  in  the  razor-fish  of  our  eastern 
coasts.  The  gills  of  the  animal,  instead  of  bearing  the 
general  color  of  its  other  parts,  like  those  of  the  oyster, 
are  of  a  deep  green  color,  resembling,  when  examined  by 
the  microscope,  the  fringe  of  a  green  curtain. 

We  were  told  by  John  Stewart,  that  the  expatriated 
inhabitants  of  Rum  used  to  catch  trout  by  a  simple  device 
of  ancient  standing,  which  preceded  the  introduction  of  nets 
into  the  island,  and  which,  it  is  possible,  may  in  other  locali- 
ties have  not  only  preceded  the  use  of  the  net,  but  may 
have  also  suggested  it :  it  had  at  least  the  appearance  of 
being  a  first  beginning  of  invention  in  this  direction.  The 
islanders  gathered  large  quantities  of  heath,  and  then  tying 
it  loosely  into  bundles,  and  stripping  it  of  its  softer  leafage, 
they  laid  the  bundles  across  the  stream  on  a  little  mound 
held  down  by  stones,  with  the  tops  of  the  heath  turned 
upwards  to  the  current.  The  water  rose  against  the  mound 
for  a  foot  or  eighteen  inches,  and  then  murmured  over  and 
through,  occasioning  an  expansion  among  the  hard  elastic 
sprays.  Next  a  party  of  the  islanders  came  down  the  stream, 
beating  the  banks  and  pools,  and  sending  a  still  thickening 
14 


158  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY. 

shoal  of  trout  before  them,  that,  on  reaching  the  miniature 
dam  formed  by  the  bundles,  darted  forward  for  shelter,  as 
if  to  a  hollow  bank,  and  stuck  among  the  slim  hard  branches, 
as  they  would  in  the  meshes  of  a  net.  The  stones  were  then 
hastily  thrown  off,  —  the  bundles  pitched  ashore,  —  the  bet- 
ter fish,  to  the  amount  not  unfrequently  of  several  scores, 
secured,  —  and  the  young  fry  returned  to  the  stream,  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  and  grow  bigger.  We  fared  richly 
this  evening,  after  our  hard  day's  labor,  on  tea  and  trout ; 
and  as  the  minister  had  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  Skye  on  the  following  Wednesday,  we  sailed  next 
morning  for  Glenelg,  whence  he  purposed  taking  the  steamer 
for  Portree.  Winds  were  light  and  baffling,  and  the  cur- 
rents, like  capricious  friends,  neutralized  at  one  time  the 
assistance  which  they  lent  us  at  another.  It  was  dark  night 
ere  we  had  passed  Isle  Ornsay,  and  morning  broke  as  we 
cast  anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Glenelg.  At  ten  o'clock  the 
steamer  heaved-to  in  the  bay  to  land  a  few  passengers,  and 
the  minister  went  on  board,  leaving  me  in  charge  of  the 
Betsey,  to  follow  him,  when  the  tide  set  in,  through  the 
Kyles  of  Skye. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

Kyles  of  Skye— A  Gneiss  District— Kyle  Rhea— A  Boiling  Tide— A  "Take" 
of  Sillocks  —  The  Betsey's  "Paces"  —  In  the  Bay  at  Broadford  —  Rain  — 
Island  of  Pabba  —  Description  of  the  Island  —  Its  Geological  Structure — 
Astrea — Polypifers — Gryp/uea  incurva — Three  groups  of  Fossils  in  the  Lias 
of  Skye  —  Abundance  of  the  Petrifactions  of  Pabba — Scenery  —  Pabba  a 
"piece  of  smooth,  level  England" — Fossil  Shells  of  Pabba  —  Voyage 
resumed— Kyle  Akin  —  Ruins  of  Castle  Maoil — A  "  Thornback  "  Dinner — 
The  Bunch  of  Deep  Sea  Tangle  —  The  Caileach  Stone  —  Kelp  Furnaces  — 
Escape  of  the  Betsey  from  sinking. 

No  sailing  vessel  attempts  threading  the  Kyles  of  Skye 
from  the  south  in  the  face  of  an  adverse  tide.  The  currents 
of  Kyle  Rhea  care  little  for  the  wind-filled  sail,  and  battle 
at  times,  on  scarce  unequal  terms,  with  the  steam-propelled 
paddle.  The  Toward  Castle  this  morning  had  such  a  strug- 
gle to  force  her  way  inwards,  as  may  be  seen  maintained  at 
the  door  of  some  place  of  public  meeting  during  the  heat  of 
some  agitating  controversy,  when  seat  and  passage  within 
can  hold  no  more,  and  a  disappointed  crowd  press  eagerly 
for  admission  from  without.  Viewed  from  the  anchoring 
place  at  Glenelg,  the  opening  of  the  Kyle  presents  the 
appearance  of  the  bottom  of  a  landlocked  bay; — the  hills 
of  Skye  seem  leaning  against  those  of  the  mainland :  and 
the  tide-buffeted  steamer  looked  this  morning  as  if  boring 
her  way  into  the  earth,  like  a  disinterred  mole,  only  at  a 
rate  vastly  slower.  First,'  however,  with  a  progress  resem- 
bling that  of  the  minute-hand  of  a  clock,  the  bows  dis- 
appeared amid  the  heath,  then  the  midships,  then  the 
quarter-deck  and  stern,  and  then,  last  of  all,  the  red  tip  of 
the  sun-brightened  union-jack  that  streamed  gaudily  behind. 


160  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

I  had  at  least  two  hours  before  ine  ere  the  Betsey  might 
attempt  weighing  anchor ;  and,  that  they  might  leave  some 
mark,  I  went  and  spent  them  ashore  iu  the  opening  of 
Glenelg, —  a  gneiss  district,  nearly  identical  in  structure 
with  the  district  of  Knock  and  Isle  Ornsay.  The  upper 
part  of  the  valley  is  bare  and  treeless,  but  not  such  its  char- 
acter where  it  opens  to  the  sea ;  the  hills  are  richly  wooded ; 
and  cottages,  and  cornfields,  with  here  and  there  a  reach  of 
the  lively  little  river,  peep  out  from  among  the  trees.  A 
group  of  tall  roofless  buildings,  with  a  strong  wall  in  front, 
form  the  central  point  in  the  landscape ;  these  are  the  dis- 
mantled Berera  Barracks,  built,  like  the  line  of  forts  in  the 
great  Caledonian  Valley,  —  Fort  George,  Fort  Augustus, 
and  Fort  William,  —  to  overawe  the  Highlands  at  a  time 
when  the  loyalty  of  the  Highlander  pointed  to  a  king 
beyond  the  water ;  but  all  use  for  them  has  long  gone  by, 
and  they  now  lie  in  dreary  ruin,  —  mere  sheltering  places 
for  the*  toad  and  the  bat.  I  found  in  a  loose  silt  on  the 
banks  of  the  river,  at  some  little  distance  below  tide-mark,  a 
bed  of  shells  and  coral,  which  might  belong,  I  at  first  sup- 
posed, to  some  secondary  formation,  but  which  I  ascertained, 
on  examination,  to  be  a  mere  recent  deposit,  not  so  old  by 
many  centuries  as  our  last  raised  sea-beaches.  There  occurs 
in  various  localities  on  these  western  coasts,  especially  on 
the'  shores  of  the  island  of  Pabba,  a  sprig  coral,  considerably 
larger  in  size  than  any  I  have  elsewhere  seen  iu  Scotland ; 
and  it  was  from  its  great  abundance  in  this  bed  of  silt  that 
I  was  at  first  led  to  deem  the  deposit  an  ancient  one. 

"We  weighed  anchor  about  noon,  and  entered  the  open- 
ing of  Kyle  Rhea.  Vessel  after  vessel,  to  the  number  of 
eight  or  ten  in  all,  had  been  arriving  in  the  course  of  the 
morning,  and  dropping  anchor,  nearer  the  opening  or  far- 
ther away,  each  according  to  its  sailing  ability,  to  await 
the  turn  of  the  tide ;  and  we  now  found  ourselves  one  of 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    161 

the  components  of  a  little  fleet,  with  some  five  or  six  ves- 
sels sweeping  up  the  Kyle  before  vis,  and  some  three  or 
four  driving  on  behind.  Never,  except  perhaps  in  a  High- 
land river  big  in  flood,  have  I  seen  such  a  tide.  It  danced 
and  wheeled,  and  came  boiling  in  huge  masses  from  the 
bottom ;  and  now  our  bows  heaved  abruptly  round  in  one 
direction,  and  now  they  jerked  as  suddenly  round  in 
another ;  and,  though  there  blew  a  moderate  breeze  at  the 
time,  the  helm  failed  to  keep  the  sails  steadily  full.  But 
whether  our  sheets  bellied  out,  or  flapped  right  in  the 
wind's  eye,  on  we  swept  in  the  tideway,  like  a  cork  caught 
during  a  thunder  shower  in  one  of  the  rapids  of  the  High 
Street.  At  one  point  the  Kyle  is  little  more  than  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  in  breadth ;  and  here,  in  the  powerful  eddy 
which  ran  along  the  shore,  we  saw  a  group  of  small  fish- 
ing-boats pursuing  a  shoal  of  sillocks  in  a  style  that  blent 
all  the  liveliness  of  the  chase  with  the  specific  interest  of 
the  angle.  The  shoal,  restless  as  the  tides  among  which  it 
disported,  now  rose  in  the  boilings  of  one  eddy,  now  beat 
the  water  into  foam  amid  the  stiller  dimplings  of  another. 
The  boats  hurried  from  spot  to  spot  wherever  the  quick 
glittering  scales  appeared.  For  a  few  seconds,  rods  would 
be  cast  thick  and  fast,  as  if  employed  in  beating  the  water, 
and  captured  fish  glanced  bright  to  the  sun ;  and  then  the 
take  would  cease,  and  the  play  rise  elsewhere,  and  oars 
would  flash  out  amain,  as  the  little  fleet  again  dashed  into 
the  heart  of  the  shoal.  As  the  Kyle  widened,  the  force  of 
the  current  diminished,  and  sail  and  helm  again  became 
things  of  positive  importance.  The  wind  blew  a-head, 
steady  though  not  strong ;  and  the  Betsey,  with  compan- 
ions in  the  voyage  against  which  to  measure  herself,  began 
to  show  her  paces.  First  she  passed  one  bulky  vessel, 
then  another :  she  lay  closer  to  the  wind  than  any  of  her 
fellows,  glided  more  quickly  through  the  water,  turned  in 
14* 


162  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

her  stays  like  Lady  Betty  in  a  minuet ;  and,  ere  we  had 
reached  Kyle  Akin,  the  fleet  in  the  middle  of  which  we 
had  started  were  toiling  far  behind  us,  all  save  one  vessel, 
a  stately  brig;  and  just  as  we  were  going  to  pass  her  too, 
she  cast  anchor,  to  await  the  change  of  the  tide,  which 
runs  from  the  west  during  flood  at  Kyle  Akin,  as  it  runs 
from  the  east  through  Kyle  Rhea,  The  wind  had  fresh- 
ened ;  and  as  it  was  now  within  two  hoiirs  of  full  sea,  the 
force  of  the  current  had  somewhat  abated;  and  so  we 
kept  on  our  course,  tacking  in  scant  room,  however,  and 
making  but  little  way.  A  few  vessels  attempted  follow- 
ing us,  but,  after  an  inefficient  tack  or  two,  they  fell  back 
on  the  anchoring  ground,  leaving  the  Betsey  to  buffet  the 
currents  alone.  Tack  followed  tack  sharp  and  quick  in 
the  narrows,  with  an  iron-bound  coast  on  either  hand. 
We  had  frequent  and  delicate  turning :  now  we  lost  fifty 
yards,  now  we  gained  a  hundred.  John  Stewart  held  the 
helm ;  and  as  none  of  us  had  ever  sailed  the  way  before,  I 
had  the  vessel's  chart  spread  out  on  the  companion-head 
before  me,  and  told  him  when  to  wear  and  when  to  hold 
on  his  way,  —  at  what  places  we  might  run  up  almost  to 
the  rock  edge,  and  at  what  places  it  was  safest  to  give  the 
land  a  good  offing.  Hurrah  for  the  Free  Church  yacht 
Betsey!  and  hurrah  once  more!  We  cleared  the  Kyle, 
leaving  a  whole  fleet  tide-bound  behind  us ;  and,  stretch- 
ing out  at  one  long  tack  into  the  open  sea,  bore,  at  the 
next,  right  into  the  bay  at  Broadford,  where  wre  cast 
anchor  for  the  night,  within  two  hundred  yards  of  the 
shore.  Provisions  were  running  short ;  and  so  I  had  to 
make  a  late  dinner  this  evening  on  some  of  the  razor-fish 
of  Rum,  topped  by  a  dish  of  tea.  But  there  is  always 
rather  more  appetite  than  food  in  the  country ;  —  such,  at 
least,  is  the  common  result  under  the  present  mode  of  dis- 
tribution :  the  hunger  overlaps  and  outstretches  the  pro- 


A   SUMMER    KAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.         163 

vision ;  and  there  was  comfort  in  the  reflection,  that  with 
the  razor-fish  on  which  to  fall  back,  it  overlapped  it  but 
by  a  very  little  on  this  occasion  in  the  cabin  of  the  Betsey. 
The  steam-boat  passed  southwards  next  morning,  and  I 
was  joined  by  my  friend  the  minister  a  little  before  break- 
fast. 

The  day  was  miserably  bad :  the  rain  continued  pattei-- 
ing  on  the  skylight,  now  lighter,  now  heavier,  till  within 
an  hour  of  sunset,  when  it  ceased,  and  a  light  breeze  began 
to  unroll  the  thick  fogs  from  oiF  the  landscape,  volume 
after  volume,  like  coverings  from  off  a  mummy,  —  leaving 
exposed  in  the  valley  of  the  Lias  a  brown  and  cheerless 
prospect  of  dark  bogs  and  of  debris-covered  hills,  streaked 
this  evening  with  downward  lines  of  foam.  The  seaward 
view  is  more  pleasing.  The  deep  russet  of  the  interior  we 
find  bordered  for  miles  along  the  edge  of  the  bay  with  a 
many-shaded  fringe  of  green;  and  the  smooth  grassy 
island  of  Pabba  lies  in  the  midst,  a  polished  gem,  all  the 
more  advantageously  displayed  from  the  roughness  of  the 
surrounding  setting.  "We  took  boat,  and  explored  the 
Lias  in  our  immediate  neighborhood  till  dusk.  I  had 
spent  several  hours  among  its  deposits  when  on  my  way 
to  Portree,  and  several  hours  more  when  on  my  jouraey 
across  the  country  to  the  east  coast ;  but  it  may  be  well, 
for  the  sake  of  maintaining  some  continuity  of  description, 
to  throw  together  my  various  observations  on  the  forma- 
tion, as  if  made  at  one  time,  and  to  connect  them  with  my 
exploration  of  Pabba,  which  took  place  on  the  following 
morning.  The  rocks  of  Pabba  belong  to  the  upper  part 
of  the  Lias ;  while  the  lower  part  may  be  found  leaning  to 
the  south,  towards  the  Red  Sandstones  of  the  Bay  of 
Lucy.  Taking  what  seems  to  be  the  natural  order,  I  shall 
begin  with  the  base  of  the  formation  first. 

In  the  general  indentation  of  the  coast,  in  the  opening 


164  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

of  which  the  island  of  Pabba  lies  somewhat  like  a  long 
green  steam-boat  at  anchor,  there  is  included  a  smaller 
indentation,  known  as  the  Bay  or  Cove  of  Lucy.  The 
central  space  in  the  cove  is  soft  and  gravelly ;  but  on  both 
its  sides  it  is  flanked  by  low  rocks,  that  stretch  out  into 
the  sea  in  long  rectilinear  lines,  like  the  foundations  of 
dry-stone  fences.  On  the  south  side  the  rocks  are  red; 
on  the  north  they  are  of  a  bluish-gray  color ;  their  hues 
are  as  distinct  as  those  of  the  colored  patches  in  a  map ; 
and  they  represent  geological  periods  that  lie  widely 
apart.  The  red  rocks  we  find  laid  down  in  most  of  our 
maps  as  Old  Red,  though  I  am  disposed  to  regard  them  as 
of  a  much  higher  antiquity  than  even  that  ancient  system ; 
while  the  bluish-gray  rocks  are  decidedly  Liasic.*  The 
cove  between  represents  a  deep  ditch-like  hollow,  which 
occurs  in  Skye,  both  in  the  interior  and  on  the  sea-shore, 
in  the  line  of  boundary  betwixt  the  Red  Sandstone  and 
the  Lias ;  and  it  "  seems  to  have  originated,"  says  M'Cul- 
loch,  "in  the  decomposition  of  the  exposed  parts  of  the 
formations  at  their  junction."  "Hence,"  he  adds,  "from 
the  wearing  of  the  materials  at  the  surfa'ce,  a  cavity  has 
been  produced,  which  becoming  subsequently  filled  with 
rubbish,  and  generally  covered  over  with  a  vegetable  soil  of 
unusual  depth,  effectually  prevents  a  view  of  the  contigu- 
ous parts."  The  first  strata  exposed  on  the  northern  side 
are  the  oldest  Liasic  rocks  anywhere  seen  in  Scotland. 
They  are  composed  chiefly  of  greenish-colored  fissile  sand- 
stones and  calciferous  grits,  in  which  we  meet  a  few  fossils, 
very  imperfectly  preserved.  But  the  organisms  increase 
as  we  go  on.  "We  see  in  passing,  near  a  picturesque  little 
cottage,  —  the  only  one  on  the  shores  of  the  bay,  —  a  crag 

*  Sir  R.  Murchison   considers  these  rocks  Silurian.     See  "  Quarterly 
Journal "  of  the  Geological  Society,  Anniversary  Address. 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         165 

of  a  singularly  rough  appearance,  that  projects  mole-like 
from  the  sward  upon  the  beach,  and  then  descending 
abruptly  to  the  level  of  the  other  strata,  runs  out  in  a  long 
ragged  line  into  the  sea.  The  stratum,  from  two  to  three 
feet  in  thickness,  of  which  it  is  formed,  seems  wholly  built 
up  of  irregularly-formed  rubbly  concretions,  just  as  some 
of  the  garden-walls  in  the  neighborhood  of  Edinburgh  are 
built  of  the  rough  scoria  of  our  glass-houses ;  and  AVC  find, 
on  examination,  that  every  seeming  concretion  in  the  bed 
is  a  perfectly  formed  coral  of  the  genus  Astrea.  We  have 
arrived  at  an  entire  bed  of  corals,  all  of  one  species.  Their 
surfaces,  wherever  they  have  been  washed  by  the  sea,  are 
of  great  beauty :  nothing  can  be  more  irregular  than  the 
outline  of  each  mass,  and  yet  scarce  anything  more  regular 
than  the  sculpturings  on  every  part  of  it.  We  find  them 
fretted  over  with  polygons,  like  those  of  a  honeycomb, 
only  somewhat  less  mathematically  exact,  and  the  centre 
of  every  polygon  contains  its  many-rayed  star.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  distinguish  between  species  in  some  of  the  divisions 
of  corals :  one  Astrea,  recent  or  extinct,  is  sometimes  found 
so  exceedingly  like  another  of  some  very  different  forma- 
tion or  period,  that  the  more  modern  might  almost  be 
deemed  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  more  ancient  species. 
With  an  eye  to  the  fact,  I  brought  with  me  some  charac- 
teristic specimens  of  this  Astrea*  of  the  Lower  Lias,  which 
I  have  ranged  side  by  side  with  the  Astrea?  of  the  Oolite  I 
had  found  so  abundant  a  twelvemonth  before  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Helmsdale.  In  some  of  the  hand  specimens, 
that  present  merely  a  piece  of  polygonal  surface,  bounded 
by  fractured  sides,  the  difference  is  not  easily  distinguish- 
able :  the  polygonal  depressions  are  generally  smaller  in 
the  Oolitic  species,  and  shallower  in  the  Liasic  one ;  but 

*  Probably  one  of  the  Isastrea  of  Edwards. 


166        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  j  OR, 

not  unfrequently  these  differences  disappear,  and  it  is  only 
when  compared  in  the  enth-e  unbroken  coral  that  their 
specific  peculiarities  acquire  the  necessary  prominence. 
The  Oolitic  Astrea  is  of  much  greater  size  than  the  Liasic 
one :  it  occurs  not  unfrequently  in  masses  of  from  two  to 
three  feet  in  diameter ;  and  as  its  polygons  are  tubes  that 
converge  to  the  footstalk  on  which  it  originally  formed,  it 
presents  in  the  average  outline  a  fungous-like  appearance ; 
whereas  in  the  smaller  Liasic  coral,  which  rarely  exceeds  a 
foot  in  diameter,  there  is  no  such  general  convergency  of 
the  tubes ;  and  the  form  in  one  piece,  save  that  there  is  a 
certain  degree  of  flatness  common  to  all,  bears  no  resem- 
blance to  the  form  in  another.  Some  of  the  recent  Astreae 
are  of  great  beauty  when  inhabited  by  the  living  zoophites 
whose  skeleton  framework  they  compose.  Every  poly- 
gonal star  in  the  mass  is  the  house  of  a  separate  animal, 
that,  when  withdrawn  into  its  cell,  presents  the  appear- 
ance of  a  minute  flower,  somewhat  like  a  daisy  stuck  flat 
to  the  surface,  and  that,  when  stretched  out,  resembles  a 
small  round  tower,  with  a  garland  of  leaves  bound  round 
it  atop  for  a  cornice.  The  Astrea  viridis,  a  coral  of  the 
tropics,  presents  on  a  ground  of  velvety  brown  myriads  of 
deep  green  florets,  that  ever  and  anon  start  up  from  the 
level  in  their  tower-like  shape,  contract  and  expand  their 
petals,  and  then,  shrinking  back  into  their  cells,  straight- 
way became  florets  again.  The  Lower  Lias  presented  in 
one  of  its  opening  scenes,  in  this  part  of  the  world,  appear- 
ances of  similar  beauty  widely  spread.  For  miles  together, 
—  we  know  not  how  many,  —  the  bottom  of  a  clear  shal- 
low sea  was  paved  with  living  Astreae:  every  irregular 
rock-like  coral  formed  a  separate  colony  of  polypora,  that, 
when  in  motion,  presented  the  appearance  of  continuous 
masses  of  many-colored  life,  and  when  at  rest,  the  places 
they  occupied  were  more  thickly  studded  with  the  living 


A   SUMMER'  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.         167 

florets  than  the  richest  and  most  flowery  piece  of  pasture 
the  reader  ever  saw,  with  its  violets  or  its  daisies.  And 
mile  beyond  mile  this  scene  of  beauty  stretched  on 
through  the  shallow  depths  of  the  Liasic  sea.  The  calcar- 
eous framework  of  most  of  the  recent  Astrea?  are  white ; 
but  in  the  species  referred  to,  —  the  Astrea  viridis,  —  it  is 
of  a  dark-brown  color.  It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark,  in 
connection  with  these  facts,  that  the  Oolitic  Astrea  of 
Helmsdale  occurs  as  a  white,  or,  when  darkest,  as  a  cream- 
colored  petrifaction ;  whereas  the  Liasic  Astrea  of  Skye  is 
invariably  of  a  deep  earthy  hue.  The  one  was  probably  a 
white,  the  other  a  dingy-colored  coral. 

The  Liasic  bed  of  Astrere  existed  long  enough  here  to 
attain  a  thickness  of  from  two  to  three  feet.  Mass  rose  over 
mass,  —  the  living  upon  the  dead,  —  till  at  length,  by  a 
deposit  of  mingled  mud  and  sand,  —  the  effect,  mayhap,  of 
some  change  of  currents,  induced  we  know  not  how,  —  the 
innumerable  polypedes  of  the  living  surface  were  buried  up 
and  killed,  and  then,  for  many  yards,  layer  after  layer  of  a 
calciferous  grit  was  piled  over  them.  The  fossils  of  the  grit 
are  few  and  ill  preserved ;  but  we  occasionally  find  in  it  a 
coral  similar  to  the  Astrea  of  the  bed  below,  and,  a  little 
higher  up,  in  an  impure  limestone,  specimens,  in  rather 
indifferent  keeping,  of  a  genus  of  polypifer  which  somewhat 
resembles  the  Turbinolia  of  the  Mountain  Limestone.  It 
presents  in  the  cross  section  the  same  radiated  structure  as 
the  Turbinolia  fungites,  and  nearly  the  same  furrowed 
appearance  in  the  longitudinal  one ;  but,  seen  in  the  larger 
specimens,  we  find  that  it  was  a  branched  coral,  with  obtuse 
forky  boughs,  in  each  of  which,  it  is  probable,  from  their 
general  structure,  there  lived  a  single  polype.  It  may  have 
been  the  resemblance  which  these  bear,  when  seen  in 
detached  branches,  to  the  older  Caryophyllia,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  fact  that  the  deposit  in  which  they  occur 


168  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY' J   OR, 

rests  on  the  ancient  Red  Sandstone  of  the  district,  that  led 
M'Culloch  to  question  whether  this  fossiliferous  formation 
had  not  nearly  as  clear  a  claim  to  be  regarded  as  an  analogue 
of  the  Carboniferous  Limestone  of  England  as  of  its  Lias ; 
and  hence  he  contented  himself  with  terming  it  simply  the 
Gryphite  Limestone.  Sir  R.  Murchison,  whose  much  more 
close  and  extensive  acquaintance  with  fossils  enabled  him  to 
assign  to  the  deposit  its  true  place,  was  struck,  however, 
with  the  general  resemblance  of  its  polypifers  to  "  those  of 
the  Madreporite  Limestone  of  the  Carboniferous  series." 
These  polypifers  occur  in  only  the  lower  Lias  of  Skye.*  I 
found  no  corals  in  its  higher  beds,  though  these  are  charged 
Avith  other  fossils,  more  characteristic  of  the  formation,  in 
vast  abundance.  In  not  a  few  of  the  middle  strata,  com- 
posed of  a  mud-colored  fissile  sandstone,  the  gryphites  lie  as 
thickly  as  currants  in  a  Christmas  cake ;  and  as  they  weather 
white,  while  the  stone  in  which  they  are  embedded  retains 
its  dingy  hue,  they  somewhat  remind  one  of  the  white-lead 
tears  of  the  undertaker  mottling  a  hatchment  of  sable.  In 
a  fragment  of  the  dark  sandstone,  six  inches  by  seven,  which 
I  brought  with  me,  I  reckon  no  fewer  than  twenty-two 
gryphites ;  and  it  forms  but  an  average  specimen  of  the  bed 
fi'om  which  I  detached  it.  By  far  the  most  abundant  species 
is  that  not  inelegant  shell  so  characteristic  of  the  formation, 
the  Gryphcea  incurva.  We  find  detached  specimens  scat- 
tered over  the  beach  by  hundreds,  mixed  up  with  the 
remains  of  recent  shells,  as  if  the  Gryphcea  incurva  were  a 
recent  shell  too.  They  lie,  bleached  white  by  the  weather, 
among  the  valves  of  defunct  oysters  and  dead  buccinidae ; 
and,  from  their  resemblance  to  lamps  cast  in  the  classic 
model,  remind  one,  in  the  corners  where  they  have  accumu- 


*  See  a  paper  by  the  Rev.  P.  B.  Brodie,  on  Lias  Corals,  "  Edinburgh 
New  Philosophic  Journal,"  April,  1857. 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         1G9 

lated  most  thickly,  of  the  old  magician's  stock  in  trade, 
who  wiled  away  the  lamp  of  Aladdin  from  Aladdin's  simple 
wife.  The  Crryphcea  obllquita,  and  Gryphcea,  M?  Cullochii 
also  occur  among  these  middle  strata  of  the  Lias,  though 
much  less  frequently  than  the  other.  We,  besides,  found  in 
them  at  least  two  species  of  Pecten,  with  two  species  of 
Terebratula, —  the  one  smooth,  the  other  sulcated;  a  bi- 
valve resembling  a  Donax;  another  bivalve,  evidently  a 
Gervillia,  though  apparently  of  a  species  not  yet  described ; 
and  the  ill-preserved  rings  of  large  Ammonites,  from  ten 
inches  to  a  foot  in  diameter.  Towards  the  bottom  of  the 
bay  the  fossils  again  become  more  rare,  though  they  re- 
appear once  more  in  considerable  abundance  as  we  pass 
along  its  northern  side ;  but  in  order  to  acquaint  ourselves 
with  the  upper  organisms  of  the  formation,  we  have  to  take 
boat  and  explore  the  northern  shores  of  Pabba.  The  Lias 
of  Skye  has  its  three  distinct  groups  of  fossils :  its  lower 
coraline  group,  in  which  the  Astrea  described  is  most 
abundant;  its  middle  group,  in  which  the  Gryphcea  incurva 
occurs  by  millions;  and  its  upper  group,  abounding  in 
Ammonites,  Nautili,  Pinna3,  and  SerpuhB. 

Friday  made  amends  for  the  rains  and  fogs  of  its  disagree- 
able predecessor :  the  morning  rose  bright  and  beautiful, 
with  just  wind  enough  to  fill,  and  barely  fill,  the  sail,  hoisted 
high,  with  miser  economy,  that  not  a  breath  might  be  lost ; 
and,  weighing  anchor,  and  shaking  out  all  our  canvass,  we 
bore  down  on  Pabba,  to  explore.  This  island,  so  soft  in 
outline  and  color,  is  formidably  fenced  round  by  dangerous 
reefs  ;  and,  leaving  the  Betsey  in  charge  of  John  Stewart 
and  his  companion,  to  dodge  on  in  the  ofiing,  I  set  out  with 
the  minister  in  our  little  boat,  and  landed  on  the  north- 
eastern side  of  the  island,  beside  a  trap-dyke  that  served  us 
as  a  pier.  He  would  be  a  happy  geologist  who,  with  a  few 
thousands  to  spare,  could  call  Pabba  his  own.  It  contains  less 
15 


170  THE   CRUISE    OF  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

than  a  square  mile  of  surface ;  and  a  walk  of  little  more 
than  three  miles  and  a  half  along  the  line  where  the  waves 
break  at  high  water  brings  the  traveller  back  to  his  starting 
point ;  and  yet,  though  thus  limited  in  area,  the  petrifac- 
tions of  its  shores  might  of  themselves  fill  a  museum.  They 
rise  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  on  the  exposed 
planes  of  its  sea-washed  strata,  standing  out  in  bold  relief, 
like  sculpturings  on  ancient  tombstones,  at  once  mummies 
and  monuments, — the  dead  and  the  carved  memorials  of 
the  dead.  Every  rock  is  a  tablet  of  hieroglyphics,  with  an 
ascertained  alphabet ;  every  rolled  pebble  a  casket  with  old 
pictorial  records  locked  up  within.  Trap-dykes,  beyond 
comparison  finer  than  those  of  the  "Water  of  Leith,  which 
first  suggested  to  Hutton  his  theory,  stand  up  like  fences 
over  the  sedimentary  strata,  or  run  out  like  moles  far  into 
the  sea.  The  entire  island,  too,  so  green,  rich,  and  level,  is 
itself  a  specimen  illustrative  of  the  effect  of  geologic  for- 
mation on  scenery.  We  find  its  nearest  neighbor, — the 
steep,  brown,  barren  island  of  Longa,  which  is  composed 
of  the  ancient  Red  Sandstone  of  the  district, — differing  as 
thoroughly  from  it  in  aspect  as  a  bit  of  granite  differs  from 
a  bit  of  clay-slate;  and  the  whole  prospect  around,  save  the 
green  Liasic  strip  that  lies  along  the  bottom  of  the  Bay  of 
Broadford,  exhibits,  true  to  its  various  components,  Plutonic 
or  sedimentary,  a  character  of  picturesque  roughness  or 
bold  sublimity.  The  only  piece  of  smooth,  level  England, 
contained  in  the  entire  landscape,  is  the  fossil-mottled  island 
of  Pabba.  We  were  first  struck,  on  landing  this  morning, 
by  the  great  number  of  Pinnae  embedded  in  the  strata,  — • 
shells  varying  from  five  to  ten  inches  in  length, — one  spe- 
cies of  the  common  flat  type,  exemplified  in  the  existing 
Pinna  sulcata,  and  another  nearly  quadrangular,  in  the 
cross  section,  like  the  Pinna  lanceolata  of  the  Scarborough 
limestone.  The  quadrangular  species  is  more  deeply 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         171 

crisped  outside  than  the  flat  one.  Both  species  bear  the 
longitudinal  groove  in  the  centre,  and  when  broken  across, 
are  found  to  contain  numerous  smaller  shells,  —  Terebra- 
tulre  of  both  the  smooth  and  sulcated  kinds,  and  a  species 
of  minute  smooth  Pecten  resembling  the  Pecten  demissus, 
but  smaller.  The  Pinnae,  ere  they  became  embedded  in  the 
original  sea-bottom,  long  since  hardened  into  rock  around 

O  '  O 

them,  were,  we  find,  dead  shells,  into  which,  as  into  the 
dead  open  shells  of  our  existing  beaches,  smaller  shells 
were  washed  by  the  waves.  Our  recent  Pinnae  are  all 
sedentary  shells,  some  of  them  full  two  feet  in  length,  fas- 
tened to  their  places  on  their  deep-sea  floors  by  flowing 
silky  byssi,  —  cables  of  many  strands, — of  which  beautiful 
pieces  of  dress,  such  as  gloves  and  hose,  have  been  manu- 
factured. An  old  French  naturalist,  the  Abbe  Le  Pluche, 
tells  us  that  "the  Pinna  with  its  fleshy  tongue"  (foot),  —  a 
rude  inefficient-looking  implement  for  work  so  nice, — 
"  spins  such  threads  as  are  more  valuable  than  silk  itself, 
and  with  which  the  most  beautiful  stuffs  that  ever  were 
seen  have  been  made  by  Sicilian  weavers."  Gloves  made 
of  the  byssus  of -recent  Pinna)  may  be  seen  in  the  British 
Museum.  Associated  with  the  numerous  Pinna?  of  Pabba 
we  found  a  delicately-formed  Modiola,  a  small  Ostrya,  Pla- 
giostoma,  Terebratula,  several  species*  of  Pectens,  a  trian- 
gular univalve  resembling,  a  Trochus,  innumerable  groups 
of  Serpulai,  and  the  star-like  joints  of  Pentacrinites.  The 
Gryphre  are  also  abundant,  occurring  in  extensive  beds  ; 
and  Belemnites  of  various  species  lie  as  thickly  scattered 
over  the  rock  as  if  they  had  been  the  spindles  of  a  whole 
kingdom  throAvn  aside  in  consequence  of  some  such  edict 
framed  to  put  them  down  as  that  passed  by  the  father  of 
the  Sleeping  Beauty.  We  find,  among  the  detached 
masses  of  the  beach,  specimens  of  Nautilus,  which,  though 
rarely  perfect,  are  sufficiently  so  to  show  the  peciiliaritics 


172  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  J   OR, 

of  the  shell ;  and  numerous  Ammonites  project  in  relief 
from  almost  every  weathered  plane  of  the  strata.  These 
last  shells,  in  the  tract  of  shore  which  we  examined,  are 
chiefly  of  one  species,  —  the  Ammonites  spinatus,  —  one 
of  which,  considerably  broken,  the  reader  may  find  figured 
in  Sowerby's  "Mineral  Conchology,"  from  a  specimen 
brought  from  Pabba  sixteen  years  ago  by  Sir  R.  Murchi- 
son.  It  is  difficult  to  procure  specimens  tolerably  complete. 
"We  find  bits  of  outer  rings  existing  as  limestone,  with 
every  rib  sharply  preserved,  but  the  rest  of  the  fossil  lost 
in  the  shale.  I  succeeded  in  finding  but  two  specimens 
that  show  the  inner  whorls.  They  are  thickly  ribbed  ;  and 
the  chief  peculiarity  which  they  exhibit,  not  so  directly  in- 
dicated by  Mr.  Sowerby's  figure,  is,  that  while  the  ribs  of 
the  outer  whorl  are  broad  and  deep,  as  in  the  Ammonites 
obtusiis,  they  suddenly  change  their  character,  and  become 
numerous  and  narrow  in  the  inner  whorls,  as  in  the  Am- 
monites communis. 

The  tide  began  to  flow,  and  we  had  to  quit  our  explora- 
tions, and  return  to  the  Betsey.  The  little  wind  had  be- 
come less,  and  all  the  canvas  Ave  could  hang  out  enabled 
ITS  to  draw  but  a  sluggish  furrow.  The  stern  of  the  Betsey 
"  wrought  no  buttons "  on  this  occasion ;  but  she  had  a 
good  tide  under  her  keel ;  and  ere  the  dinner-hour  we  had 
passed  through  the  narrows  of  Kyle  Akin.  The  village  of 
this  name  was  designed  by  the  late  Lord  M'Donald  for  a 
great  sea-port  town ;  but  it  refused  to  grow ;  and  it  has 
since  become  a  gentleman  in  a  small  way,  and  does  nothing. 
It  forms,  however,  a  handsome  group  of  houses,  pleasantly 
situated  on  a  flat  green  tongue  of  land,  on  the  Skye  side, 
just  within  the  opening  of  the  Kyle  ;  and  there  rises  on  an 
eminence  beyond  it  a  fine  old  tower,  rent  open,  as  if  by  an 
earthquake,  from  top  to  bottom,  which  forms  one  of  the 
most  picturesque  objects  I  have  almost  ever  seen  in  a  land- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    173 

scape.  There  are  bold  hills  all  around,  and  rocky  islands, 
with  the  ceaseless  rush  of  tides  in  front ;  while  the  cloven 
tower,  rising  high  over  the  shore,  is  seen,  in  threading  the 
Kyles,  whether  from  the  south  or  north,  relieved  dark 
against  the  sky,  as  the  central  object  in  the  vista.  "We  find 
it  thus  described  by  the  Messrs.  Anderson  of  Inverness,  in 
their  excellent  "Guide  Book," — by. far  the  best  companion 
of  the  kind  with  which  the  traveller  who  sets  himself  to 
explore  our  Scottish  Highlands  can  be  provided.  "  Close 
to  the  village  of  Kyle  Akin  are  the  ruins  of  an  old  square 
keep,  called  Castle  Muel  or  Maoil,  the  walls  of  which  are 
of  a  remarkable  thickness.  It  is  said  to  have  been  built 
by  the  daughter  of  a  Norwegian  king,  married  to  a  Mac- 
kinnon  or  Macdonald,  for  the  purpose  of  levying  an  impost 
on  all  vessels  passing  the  Kyles,  excepting,  says  the  tradi- 
tion, those  of  her  own  country.  For  the  more  certain 
exaction  of  this  duty,  she  is  reported  to  have  caused  a 
strong  chain  to  be  stretched  across  from  shore  to  shore ; 
and  the  spot  in  the  rocks  to  which  the  terminal  links  were 
attached  is  still  pointed  out."  It  was  high  time  for  us  to 
be  home.  The  dinner  hour  came  ;  but,  in  meet  illustration 
of  the  profound  remark  of  Trotty-Veck,  not  the  dinner. 
We  had  been  in  a  cold  Moderate  district,  whence  there 
came  no  half-dozens  of  eggs,  or  whole  dozens  of  trout,  or- 
pailfuls  of  razor-fish,  and  in  which  hard  cabin-biscuit  cost  us 
sixpence  per  pound.  And  now  our  stores  were  exhausted, 
and  we  had  to  dine  as  best  we  could,  on  our  last  half-ounce 
of  tea,  sweetened  by  our  last  quarter  of  a  pound  of  sugar. 
I  had  marked,  however,  a  dried  thornback  hanging  among 
the  rigging.  It  had  been  there  nearly  three  weeks  before, 
when  I  came  first  aboard,  and  no  one  seemed  to  know  for 
how  many  weeks  previous  ;  for  as  it  had  come  to  be  a  sort 
of  fixture  in  the  vessel,  it  could  be  looked  at  without  beinsc 

*  O 

seen.     But  necessity  sharpens  the   discerning  faculty,  and 
15* 


174  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

on  this  pressing  occasion  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  it. 
It  was  straightway  taken  down,  skinned,  roasted,  and 
eaten  ;  and,  though  rather  rich  in  ammonia,  —  a  substance 
better  suited  to  form  the  food  of  the  organisms  that  do  not 
unite  sensation  to  vitality,  than  organisms  so  high  in  the 
scale  as  the  minister  and  his  friend,  —  we  came  deliberately 
to  the  opinion,  that  on  the  whole,  we  could  scarce  have 
dined  so  well  on  one  of  Major  Bellenden's  jack-boots,  —  "so 
thick  in  the  soles,"  according  to  Jenny  Dennison,  "  forby 
being  tough  in  the  upper  leather."  The  tide  failed  us  oppo- 
site the  opening  of  Loch  Alsh ;  the  wind,  long  dying,  at 
length  died  out  into  a  dead  calm ;  and  we  cast  anchor  in 
ten  fathoms  water,  to  wait  the  ebbing  current  that  was  to 
carry  us  through  Kyle  Rhea. 

The  ebb-tide  set  in  about  half  an  hour  after  sunset ;  and 
in  weighing  anchor  to  float  down  the  Kyle,  —  for  we  still 
lacked  wind  to  sail  down  it,  —  we  brought  up  from  below, 
on  one  of  the  anchor-flukes,  an  immense  bunch  of  deep-sea 
tangle,  with  huge  soft  fronds  and  long  slender  stems,  that 
had  lain  flat  on  the  rocky  bottom,  and  had  here  and  there 
thrown  out  roots  along  its  length  of  stalk,  to  attach  itself 
to  the  rock,  in  the  way  the  ivy  attaches  itself  to  the  wall. 
Among  the  intricacies  of  the  true  roots  of  the  bunch,  if  one 
may  speak  of  the  true  roots  of  an  alga,  I  reckoned  from 
eighteen  to  twenty  different  forms  of  animal  life,  —  Flustrae, 
Sertulai-iae,  Serpulse,  Anomiae,  ModiolaB,  Astarte,  Annelida, 
Crustacea,  and  Radiata.  Among  the  Crustaceans  I  found  a 
female  crab  of  a  reddish-brown  color,  considerably  smaller 
than  the  nail  of  my  small  finger,  but  fully  grown  apparently,! 
for  the  abdominal  flap  was  loaded  with  spawn ;  and  among 
the  Echinoderms,  a  brownish-yellow  sea-urchin  about  the 
size  of  a  pistol-bullet,  furnished  with  comparatively  large 
but  thinly-set  spines.  There  is  a  dangerous  rock  in  the 
Kyle  Rhea,  the  Caileach  stone,  on  which  the  Commissioners 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         175 

for  the  Northern  Lighthouses  have  stuck  a  bit  of  board 
about  the  size  of  a  pot-lid,  which,  as  it  is  known  to  be 
there,  and  as  no  one  ever  sees  it  after  sunset,  is  really  very 
effective,  considering  how  little  it  must  have  cost  the 
counti'y,  in  wrecking  vessels.  I  saw  one  of  its  victims,  the 
sloop  of  an  honest  Methodist,  in  whose  bottom  the  Caileach 
had  knocked  out  a  hole,  repairing  at  Isle  Ornsay ;  and  I 
was  told,  that  if  I  wished  to  see  more,  I  had  only  just  to 
wait  a  little.  The  honest  Methodist,  after  looking  out  in 
vain  for  the  bit  of  board,  was  just  stepping  into  the  shrouds, 
to  try  whether  he  could  not  see  the  rock  on  which  the  bit 
of  board  is  placed,  when  all  at  once  his  vessel  found  out 
both  board  and  rock  for  herself.  We  also  had  anxious 
looking  out  this  evening  for  the  bit  of  board :  one  of  us 
thought  he  saw  it  right  a-head ;  and  when  some  of  the 
others  were  trying  to  see  it  too,  John  Stewart  succeeded 
in  discovering  it  half  a  pistol-shot  astern.  The  evening 
was  one  of  the  loveliest.  The  moon  rose  in  cloudy  majesty 
over  the  mountains  of  Glenelg,  brightening  as  it  rose,  till 
the  boiling  eddies  around  us  curled  on  the  darker  surface 
in  pale  circlets  of  light,  and  the  shadow  of  the  Betsey  lay 
as  sharply  defined  on  the  brown  patch  of  calm  to  the 
larboard  as  if  it  were  her  portrait  taken  in  black.  Imme- 
diately at  the  water-edge,  under  a  tall  dark  hill,  there  were 
two  smouldering  fires,  that  now  shot  up  a  sudden  tongue 
of  bright  flame,  and  now  dimmed  into  blood-red  specks, 
and  sent  thick  strongly-scented  trails  of  smoke  athwart  the 
surface  of  the  Kyle.  We  could  hear,  in  the  calm,  voices 
from  beside  them,  apparently  those  of  children ;  and  learned 
that  they  indicated  the  places  of  two  kelp-furnaces,  — 
things  which  have  now  become  comparatively  rare  along 
the  coasts  of  the  Hebrides.  There  was  the  low  rush  of 
tides  all  around,  and  the  distant  voices  from  the  shore,  but 
no  other  sounds ;  and,  dim  in  the  moonshine,  we  could  see 


176  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE  BETSEY  J    OR, 

behind  us  several  spectral-looking  sails  threading  their 
silent  way  through  the  narrows,  like  twilight  ghosts  trav- 
ersing some  haunted  corridor. 

It  was  late  ere  we  reached  the  opening  of  Isle  Ornsay ; 
and  as  it  was  still  a  dead  calm  we  had  to  tug  in  the  Betsey 
to  the  anchoring  ground  with  a  pair  of  long  sweeps.  The 
minister  pointed  to  a  low-lying  rock  on  the  left-hand  side 
of  the  opening,  —  a  favorite  haunt  of  the  seal.  "  I  took 
farewell  of  the  Betsey  there  last  winter,"  he  said.  "  The 
night  had  worn  late,  and  was  pitch  dark ;  we  could  see 
before  us  scarce  the  length  of  our  bowsprit ;  not  a  single 
light  twinkled  from  the  shore ;  and,  in  taking  the  bay,  we 
ran  bump  on  the  skerry,  and  stuck  fast.  The  water  came 
rushing  in,  and  covered  over  the  cabin-floor.  I  had  Mrs. 
Swanson  and  my  little  daughter  aboard  with  me,  with  one 
of  our  servant-maids  who  had  become  attached  to  the 
family,  and  insisted  on  following  us  from  Eigg ;  and,  of 
course,  our  first  care  was  to  get  them  ashore.  "VVe  had  to 
land  them  on  the  bare  uninhabited  island  yonder,  and  a 
dreary  enough  place  it  was  at  midnight,  in  winter,  with  its 
rocks,  bogs,  and  heath,  and  with  a  rude  sea  tumbling  over 
the  skerries  in  front ;  but  it  had  at  least  the  recommendation 
of  being  safe,  and  the  sky,  though  black  and  wild,  was  not 
stormy.  I  had  brought  two  lanterns  ashore  :  the  servant 
girl,  with  the  child  in  her  lap,  sat  beside  one  of  them,  in 
the  shelter  of  a  rock ;  while  my  wife,  with  the  other,  went 
walking  up  and  down  along  a  piece  of  level  sward  yonder, 
waving  the  light,  to  attract  notice  from  the  opposite  side 
of  the  bay.  But  though  it  was  seen  from  the  windows  of 
my  own  house  by  an  attached  relative,  it  was  deemed 
merely  a  singularly-distinct  apparition  of  Will  o'  the  "Wisp, 
and  so  brought  us  no  assistance.  Meanwhile  we  had  car- 
ried out  a  kedge  astern  of  the  Betsey,  as  the  sea  was  flow- 
ing at  the  time,  to  keep  her  from  beating  in  over  the  rocks : 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.          177 

and  then,  taking  our  few  movables  ashore,  we  hung  on 
till  the  tide  rose,  and,  with  our  boat  alongside  ready  for 
escape,  succeeded  in  warping  her  into  deep  water,  with  the 
intention  of  letting  her  sink  somewhere  beyond  the  influ- 
ence of  the  surf,  which,  without  fail,  would  have  broken 
her  up  on  the  skerry  in  a  few  hours,  had  wo  suifered  her 
to  remain  there.  But  though,  when  on  the  rock,  the  tide 
had  risen  as  freely  over  the  cabin  sole  inside  as  over  the 
crags  without,  in  the  deep  water  the  Betsey  gave  no  sign 
of  sinking.  I  went  down  to  the  cabin;  the  water  was 
knee-high  on  the  floor,  dashing  against  bed  and  locker,  but 
it  rose  no  higher ;  —  the  enormous  leak  had  stopped,  we 
knew  not  how;  and,  setting  ourselves  to  the  pump,  we 
had  in  an  hour  or  two  a  clear  ship.  The  Betsey  is  clinker- 
built  below.  The  elastic  oak  planks  had  yielded  inwards 
to  the  pressure  of  the  rock,  tearing  out  the  fastenings,  and 
admitted  the  tide  at  wide  yawning  seams ;  but  no  sooner 
was  the  pressure  removed,  than  out  they  sprung  again  into 
their  places,  like  bows  when  the  strings  are  slackened; 
and  when  the  carpenter  came  to  overhaul,  he  found  he  had 
little  else  to  do  than  to  remove  a  split  plank,  and  to  supply 
a  few  dozens  of  drawn  nails." 


CHAPTER    X. 

Isle  Ornsay  —  The  Sabbath  — A  Sailor-minister's  Sermon  for  Sailors  — The 
Scuir  Sermon  —  Loch  Can-on — Groups  of  Moraines  —  A  sheep  District  — 
The  Editor  of  the  Wittiest  and  the  Establishment  Clergyman  —  Dingwall — 
Conon-side  revisited  —  The  Pond  and  its  Changes  —  New  Faces  —  The 
Stone-mason's  Mark  —  The  Burying  Ground  of  Urquhart  — An  old  acquaint- 
ance—  Property  Qualification  for  Voting  in  Scotland  —  Montgerald  Sand- 
stone Quarries  —  Geological  Science  in  Cromarty — The  Danes  at  Cromarty 
—  The  Danish  Professor  and  the  "  Old  Bed  Sandstone  "—Harmonizing  ten- 
dencies of  Science. 

THE  anchoring  ground  at  Isle  Ornsay  was  crowded  with 
coasting  vessels  and  fishing  boats ;  and  when  the  Sabbath 
came  round,  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  my  friend's  con- 
gregation was  composed  of  sailors  and  fishermen.  His  text 
was  appropriate,  — "  He  bringeth  them  into  their  desired 
haven;"  and  as  his  sea-craft  and  his  theology  were  alike 
excellent,  there  were  no  incongruities  in  his  allegory,  and 
no  defects  in  his  mode  of  applying  it,  and  the  seamen  were 
hugely  delighted.  John  Stewart,  though  less  a  master  of 
English  than  of  many  other  things,  told  me  he  was  able  to 
follow  the  minister  from  beginning  to  end,  —  a  thing  he  had 
never  done  before  at  an  English  preaching.  The  sea  por- 
tion of  the  sermon,  he  said,  was  very  pkin:  it  was  about 
the  helm,  and  the  sails,  and  the  anchor,  and  the  chart,  and 
the  pilot,  —  about  rocks,  winds,  currents,  and  safe  har- 
borage ;  and  by  attending  to  this  simpler  part  of  it,  he  was 
led  into  the  parts  that  were  less  simple,  and  so  succeeded  in 
comprehending  the  whole.  I  would  fain  see  this  unique 
discourse,  preached  by  a  sailor  minister  to  a  sailor  congre- 
gation, preserved  in  some  permanent  form,  with  at  least  one 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG    T1IE   HEBRIDES.         179 

other  discourse,  —  of  which  I  found  trace  in  the  island  of 
Eigg,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  twelvemonth,  —  that 
had  been  preached  about  the  time  of  the  Disruption,  full  in 
sight  of  the  Scuir,  with  its  impregnable  hill-fort,  and  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  the  cave  of  Frances,  with  its 
heaps  of  dead  men's  bones.  One  note  stuck  fast  to  the 
islanders.  In  times  of  peril  and  alarm,  said  the  minister, 
the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  island  had  two  essentially  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  places  in  which  they  sought  security ;  they 
had  the  deep,  unwholesome  cave,  shut  up  from  the  light  and 
the  breath  of  heaven,  and  the  tall  rock  summit,  with  its 
impregnable  fort,  on  which  the  sun  shone  and  the  wind 
blew.  Much  hardship  might  no  doubt  be  encountered  on 
the  one,  when  the  sky  was  black  with  tempest,  and  rains 
beat,  or  snows  descended ;  but  it  was  found  associated  with 
no  story  of  real  loss  or  disaster,  —  it  had  kept  safe  all  who 
had  committed  themselves  to  it;  whereas,  in  the  close 
atmosphere  of  the  other  there  was  warmth,  and,  after  a  sort, 
comfort ;  and  on  one  memorable  day  of  trouble  the  islanders 
had  deemed  it  the  preferable  sheltering  place  of  the  two. 
And  there  survived  mouldering  skeletons  and  a  frightful 
tradition,  to  tell  the  history  of  their  choice.  Places  of 
refuge  of  these  very  opposite  kinds,  said  the  minister,  con- 
tinuing his  allegory,  are  not  peculiar  to  your  island ;  never 
was  there  a  day  or  a  place  of  trial  in  which  they  did  not 
advance  their  opposite  claims :  they  are  advancing  them 
even  now  all  over  the  world.  The  one  kind  you  find  des- 
cribed by  one  great  prophet  as  low-lying  "  refuges  of  lies," 
over  which  the  desolating  "  scourge  must  pass,"  and  which 
the  destroying  "waters  must  overflow;"  while  the  true 
character  of  the  other  may  be  learned  from  another  great 
prophet,  who  was  never  weary  of  celebrating  his  "  rock  and 
his  fortress."  "Wit  succeeds  more  from  being  happily 
addressed,"  says  Goldsmith,  "than  even  from  its  native 


180        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

poignancy."  If  my  friend's  allegory  does  not  please  quite 
as  well  in  print  and  in  English  as  it  did  when  delivered  viva 
voce  in  Gaelic,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  was  addressed 
to  an  out-door  congregation,  whose  minds  were  filled  with 
the  consequences  of  the  Disruption,  —  that  the  bones  of 
Uamh  Fraingh  lay  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  them,  — 
and  that  the  Scuir,  with  the  sun  shining  bright  on  its  sum- 
mit, rose  tall  in  the  back-ground,  scarce  a  mile  away. 

On  Monday  I  spent  several  hours  in  reexploring  the  Lias 
of  Lucy  Bay  and  its  neighborhood,  and  then  walked  on  to 
Kyle-Akin,  where  I  parted  from  my  friend  Mr.  Swanson, 
and  took  boat  for  Loch  Carron.  The  greater  part  of  the 
following  day  was  spent  in  crossing  the  country  to  the  east 
coast  in  the  mail-gig,  through  long  dreary  glens,  and  a  fierce 
storm  of  wind  and  rain.  In  the  lower  portion  of  the  valley 
occupied  by  the  river  Carron,  I  saw  at  least  two  fine  groups 
of  moraines.  One  of  these,  about  a  mile  and  a  half  above 
the  parish  manse,  marks  the  place  where  a  glacier,  that  had 
once  descended  from  a  hollow  amid  the  northern  range  of 
hills,  had  furrowed  up  the  gravel  and  earth  before  it  in  long 
ridges,  which  we  find  running  nearly  parallel  to  the  road ; 
the  other  group,  which  lies  higher  up  the  valley,  and 
seems  of  considerably  greater  extent,  indicates  where  one 
of  those  river-like  glaciers  that  fill  up  long  hollows,  and 
impel  their  irresistible  flood  downwards,  slow  as  the  hour- 
hand  of  a  time-piece,  had  terminated  towards  the  sea.  I 
could  but  glance  at  the  appearances  as  the  gig  drove  past, 
and  point  them  out  to  a  fellow  passenger,  the  Establishment 
minister  of  *  *  *,  remarking,  at  the  same  time,  how  much 
more  dreary  the  prospect  must  have  seemed  than  even  it 
did  to-day,  though  the  fog  was  thick  and  the  drizzle  disa- 
greeable, when  the  lateral  hollows  on  each  side  were  blocked 
up  with  ice,  and  overhanging  glaciers,  that  ploughed  the 
rock  bare  in  their  descent,  glistened  on  the  bleak  hill-sides. 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    181 

I  wore  a  gray  maud  over  a  coat  of  rough  russet,  with  waist- 
coat and  trowsers  of  plaid ;  and  the  minister,  who  must 
have  taken  me,  I  suppose,  for  a  southland  shepherd  looking 
out  for  a  farm,  gave  me  much  information  of  a  kind  I  might 
have  found  valuable  had  such  been  my  condition  and  busi- 
ness, regarding  the  various  districts  through  which  we 
passed.  On  one  high-lying  farm,  the  grass,  he  said,  was 
short  and  thin,  but  sweet  and  wholesome,  and  the  flocks 
throve  steadily,  and  were  never  thinned  by  disease ;  whereas 
on  another  farm,  that  lay  along  the  dank  bottom  of  a  valley, 
the  herbage  was  rank  and  rich,  and  the  sheep  fed  and  got 
heavy,  but  braxy  at  the  close  of  autumn  fell  upon  them  like 
a  pestilence,  and  more  than  neutralized  to  the  farmer  every 
advantage  of  the  superior  fertility  of  the  soil.  It  was  not 
uninteresting,  even  for  one  not  a  sheep-farmer,  to  learn  that 
the  life  of  the  sheep  is  worth  fewer  years'  purchase  in  one 
little  track  of  country  than  in  another  adjacent  one ;  and 
that  those  differences  in  the  salubrity  of  particular  spots 
which  obtain  in  other  parts  of  the  Avorld  in  regard  to  our 
own  species,  and  which  make  it  death  to  linger  on  the  luxu- 
riant river-side,  while  on  the  arid  plain  or  elevated  hill-top 
there  is  health  and  safety,  should  exist  in  contiguous  walks 
in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  in  reference  to  some  of  the 
interior  animals.  The  minister  and  I  became  wonderfully 
good  friends  for  the  time.  All  the  seats  in  the  gig,  both 
back  and  front,  had  been  occupied  ere  he  had  taken  his  pas- 
sage, and  the  postman  had  assigned  him  a  miserable  place 
on  the  narrow  elevated  platform  in  the  middle,  where  he 
had  to  coil  himself  up  like  a  hedgehog  in  its  hole,  sadly  to 
the  discomfort  of  limbs  still  stout  and  strong,  but  stiffened 
by  the  long  service  of  full  seventy  years.  And,  as  in  the 
case  made  famous  by  Cowper,  of  the  "  softer  sex  "  and  the 
old-fashioned  iron-cushioned  arm-chairs,  the  old  man  had,  as 
became  his  years,  "  'gan  murmur."  I  contrived,  by  sitting 
16 


182  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

on  the  edge  of  the  gig  on  the  one  side,  and  bv  settino-  the 

•»      O  O 

postman  to  take  a  similar  seat  on  the  other,  to  find  room  for 
him  in  front ;  and  there,  feeling  he  had  not  to  do  with 
savages,  he  became  kindly  and  conversible.  We  beat  to- 
gether over  a  wide  range  of  topics ;  —  the  Scotch  banks,  and 
Sir  Robert  Peel's  intentions  regarding  them, —  the  periodical 
press  of  Scotland,  —  the  Edinburgh  literati,  —  the  Free 
Church  even:  he  had  been  a  consistent  Moderate  all  his 
days,  and  disliked  renegades,  he  said ;  and  I,  of  course,  dis- 
liked renegades  too.  We  both  remembered  that,  though 
civilized  nations  give  quarter  to  an  enemy  overpowered  in 
open  fight,  they  are  still  in  the  habit  of  shooting  deserters. 
In  short,  we  agreed  on  a  great  many  different  matters ;  and, 
by  comparing  notes,  we  made  the  best  we  could  of  a  tedious 
journey  and  a  very  bad  day.  At  the  inn  at  Garve,  a  long 
stage  from  Dingwall,  we  alighted,  and  took  the  road 
together,  to  straighten  our  stiffened  limbs,  while  the  post 
man  was  engaged  in  changing  horses.  The  minister  stopped 
short  in  the  middle  of  a  discussion.  We  are  not  on  equal 
terms,  he  said :  you  know  who  I  am,  and  I  don't  know  you : 
Ave  did  not  start  fair  at  the  beginning,  but  let  us  start  fail- 
now.  Ah,  we  have  agreed  hitherto,  I  replied ;  but  I  know 
not  how  we  are  to  agree  when  you  know  who  I  am:  are  you 
sure  you  will  not  be  frightened?  Frightened!  said  the 
minister  sturdily ;  no,  by  no  man.  Then,  I  am  the  Editor 
of  the  Witness.  There  was  a  momentary  pause.  "  Well," 
said  the  minister,  "  it 's  all  the  same :  I  'm  glad  we  should 
have  met.  Give  me,  man,  a  shake  of  your  hand."  And  so 
the  conversation  went  on  as  before  till  we  parted  at  Ding- 
wall,  —  the  Establishment  clergyman  wet  to  the  skin,  the 
Free  Church  editor  in  no  better  condition;  but  both,  may- 
hap, rather  less  out  of  conceit  with  the  ride  than  if  it  had 
been  ridden  alone. 

I  had  intended  passing  at  least  two  days  in  the  neigh- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.     183 

borhoorl  of  Dingwall,  where  I  proposed  renewing  an 
acquaintance,  broken  off  for  tliree-and-twenty  years,  with 
those  bituminous  shales  of  Strathpeffer  in  which  the  cele- 
brated mineral  waters  of  the  valley  take  their  rise,  —  the 
Old  Red  Conglomerate  of  Brahan,  the  vitrified  fort  of 
Knockferrel,  the  ancient  tower  of  Fail-burn,  above  all,  the 
pleasure-grounds  of  Conon-side.  I  had  spent  the  greater 
portion  of  my  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  years  in  this  part 
of  the  country ;  and  I  was  curious  to  ascertain  to  what 
extent  the  man  in  middle  life  would  verify  the  observa- 
tions of  the  lad,  —  to  recall  early  incidents,  revisit  remem- 
bered scenes,  return  on  old  feelings,  and  see  who  were 
dead  and  who  were  alive  among  the  casual  acquaintances 
of  neai'ly  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  morning  of 
Wednesday  rose  dark  with  fog  and  rain,  but  the  wind  had 
fallen ;  and  as  I  could  not  aiford  to  miss  seeing  Conon- 
side,  I  sallied  out  under  cover  of  an  umbrella.  I  crossed 
the  bridge,  and  reached  the  pleasure-grounds  of  Conon- 
house.  The  river  was  big  in  flood :  it  was  exactly  such  a 
river  Conon  as  I  had  lost  sight  of  in  the  winter  of  1821 ; 
and  I  had  to  give  up  all  hope  of  wading  into  its  fords,  as  I 
used  to  do  early  in  the  autumn  of  that  year,  and  pick  up 
the  pearl  muscles  that  lie  so  thickly  among  the  stones  at 
the  bottom.  I  saw,  however,  amid  a  thicket  of  bushes  by 
the  river-side,  a  heap  of  broken  shells,  where  some  herd- 
boy  had  been  carrying  on  such  a  pearl  fishery  as  I  had 
sometimes  used  to  carry  on  in  my  own  behalf  so  long 
before ;  and  I  felt  it  was  just  something  to  see  it.  The 
flood  eddied  past,  dark  and  heavy,  sweeping  over  bulwark 
and  bank.  The  low-stemmed  alders  that  rose  on  islet  and 
mound  seemed  shorn  of  half  their  trunks  in  the  tide ;  here 
and  there  an  elastic  branch  bent  to  the  current,  and  rose 
and  bent  again ;  and  now  a  tuft  of  withered  heath  came 
floating  down,  and  now  a  soiled  wreath  of  foam.  How 


184        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OE, 

vividly  the  past  rose  up  before  me !  —  boyish  day-dreams 
forgotten  for  twenty  years,  —  the  fossils  of  an  early  forma- 
tion of  mind,  produced  at  a  period  when  the  atmosphere 
of  feeling  was  warmer  than  now,  and  the  immaturities  of 
the  mental  kingdom  grew  rank  and  large,  like  the  ancient 
Cryptogamiae,  and  bore  no  specific  resemblance  to  the  pro- 
ductions of  a  present  time.  I  had  passed  in  the  neighbor- 
hood the  first  season  I  anywhere  spent  among  strangers, 
at  an  age  when  home  is  not  a  country,  nor  a  province  even, 
but  simply  a  little  spot  of  earth  inhabited  by  friends  and 
relatives ;  and  the  rude  verses,  long  forgotten,  in  which 
my  joy  had  found  vent  when  on  the  eve  of  returning  to 
that  home,  —  a  home  little  more  than  twenty  miles  away, 
—  came  chiming  as  freshly  into  my  memory  as  if  scarce  a 
month  had  passed  since  I  had  composed  them  beside  the 
Conon.* 

Three-and-twenty  years  form  a  large  portion  of  the 
short  life  of  man,  —  one-third,  as  nearly  as  can  be 
expressed  in  unbroken  numbers,  of  the  entire  term  fixed 
by  the  psalmist,  and  full  one-half,  if  we  strike  off  the  twi- 
light periods  of  childhood  and  immature  youth,  and  of 
senectitude  weary  of  its  toils.  I  found  curious  indications 
among  the  grounds  of  Conon-side,  of  the  time  that  had 
elapsed  since  I  had  last  seen  them.  There  was  a  rectan- 
gular pond  in  a  corner  of  a  moor,  near  the  public  road, 
inhabited  by  about  a  dozen  voracious,  frog-eating  pike, 
that  I  used  frequently  to  visit.  The  water  in  the  pond 
was  exceedingly  limpid ;  and  I  could  watch  from  the 
banks  every  motion  of  the  hungry,  energetic  inmates. 
And  now  I  struck  off  from  the  river-side  by  a  narrow 
tangled  pathway,  to  visit  it  once  more.  I  could  have 

*  The  verses  here  referred  to  are  introduced  into  "  My  Schools  and 
Schoolmasters,"  chapter  tenth. 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES  185 

found  out  the  place  blindfold :  there  was  a  piece  of  flat 
brown  heath  that  stretched  round  its  edges,  and  a  mossy 
slope  that  rose  at  its  upper  side,  at  the  foot  of  which  the 
taste  of  the  proprietor  had  placed  a  rustic  chair.  The 
spot,  though  itself  bare  and  moory,  was  nearly  surrounded 
by  wood,  and  looked  like  a  clearing  in  an  American  forest. 
There  were  lines  of  graceful  larches  on  two  of  its  sides, 
and  a  grove  of  vigorous  beeches  that  directly  fronted  the 
setting  sun  on  a  third ;  and  I  had  often  found  it  a  place  of 
delightful  resort,  in  which  to  saunter  alone  in  the  calm 
summer  evenings,  after  the  work  of  the  day  was  over. 
Such  was  the  scene  as  it  existed  in  my  recollection.  I 
came  up  to  it  this  day  through  dripping  trees,  along  a 
neglected  pathway ;  and  found,  for  the  open  space  and 
the  rectangular  pond,  a  gloomy  patch  of  water  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  tangled  thicket,  that  rose  some  ten  or  twelve  feet 
over  my  head.  What  had  been  bare  heath  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before  had  become  a  thick  wood ;  and  I  remem- 
bered, that  when  I  had  been  last  there,  the  open  space 
had  just  been  planted  with  forest-trees,  and  that  some  of 
the  taller  plants  rose  half-way  to  my  knee.  Human  life- 
times, as  now  measured,  are  not  intended  to  witness  both 
the  seed-times  and  the  harvests  of  forests,  —  both  the 
planting  of  the  sapling,  and  the  felling  of  the  huge  tree 
into  which  it  has  grown ;  and  so  the  incident  impressed 
me  strongly.  It  reminded  me  of  the  sage  Shalum  in 
Addison's  antediluvian  tale,  who  became  wealthy  by  the 
sale  of  his  great  trees,  two  centuries  after  he  had  planted 
them.  I  pursued  my  walk,  to  revisit  another  little  patch 
of  water  which  I  had  found  so  very  entertaining  a  volume 
three-and-twenty  years  previous,  that  I  could  still  recall 
many  of  its  lessons ;  but  the  hand  of  improvement  had 
been  busy  among  the  fields  of  Conon-side ;  and  when  I 
came  up  to  the  spot  which  it  had  occupied,  I  found  but  a 
16* 


186        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

piece  of  level  arable  land,  bearing  a  rank  swathe  of  grass 
and  clover.* 

Not  a  single  individual  did  I  find  on  the  farm  who  had 
been  there  twenty  years  before.  I  entered  into  conversa- 
tion with  one  of  the  ploughmen,  apparently  a  man  of  some 
intelligence ;  but  he  had  come  to  the  place  only  a  summer 
or  two  previous,  and  the  names  of  most  of  his  predecessors 
sounded  unfamiliar  in  his  ears  :  he  knew  scarce  anything  of 
the  old  laird  or  his  times,  and  but  little  of  the  general  his- 
tory of  the  district.  The  frequent  change  of  servants  inci- 
dent to  the  large-farm  system  has  done  scarce  less  to  Avear 
out  the  oral  antiquities  of  the  country  than  has  been  done 
by  its  busy  ploughs  in  obliterating  antiquities  of  a  more 
material  cast.  The  mythologic  legend  and  traditionary 
story  have  shared  the  same  fate,  through  the  influence  of 
the  one  cause,  which  has  been  experienced  by  the  sepul- 
chral tumulus  and  the  ancient  encampment  under  the  ope- 
rations of  the  other.  I  saw  in  the  pillars  and  archways  of 
the  farm-steading  some  of  the  hewn  stones  bearing  my  own 
mark,  —  an  anchor,  to  which  I  used  to  attach  a  certain 
symbolical  meaning  ;  and  I  pointed  them  out  to  the  plough- 
man. I  had  hewn  these  stones,  I  said,  in  the  days  of  the 
old  laird,  the  grandfather  of  the  present  proprietor.  The 
ploughman  wondered  how  a  man  still  in  middle  life  could 
have  such  a  story  to  tell.  I  must  surely  have  begun  work 
early  in  the  day,  he  remarked,  which  was  perhaps  the  best 
way  for  getting  it  soon  over.  I  remembered  having  seen 
similar  markings  on  the  hewn-work  of  ancient  castles,  and 
of  indulging  in,  I  daresay,  idle  enough  speculations  regard- 
ing what  was  doing  at  court  and  in  the  field,  in  Scotland 
and  elsewhere,  when  the  old  long-departed  mechanics  had 
been  engaged  in  their  work.  When  this  mark  was  aflixed, 

*  For  a  description  of  this  pond  see  "  My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters," 
chapter  tenth. 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.         187 

I  have  said,  all  Scotland  was  in  mourning  for  the  disaster  at 
Flodden,  and  the  folk  in  the  work-shed  would  have  been, 
mayhap,  engaged  in  discussing  the  supposed  treachery  of 
Home,  and  in  arguing  whether  the  hapless  James  had  fallen 
in  battle,  or  gone  on  a  pilgrimage  to  merit  absolution  for 
the  death  of  his  father.  And  when  this  other  more  modern 
mark  was  affixed,  the  Gowrie  conspiracy  must  have  been 
the  topic  of  the  day,  and  the  mechanics  were  probably  spe- 
culating,— at  worst  not  more  doubtfully  than  the  historians 
have  done  after  them,  —  on  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the 
Ruthvens.  It  now  rose  curiously  enough  in  memory,  that 
I  was  employed  in  fashioning  one  of  the  stones  marked  by 
the  anchor,  —  a  corner  stone  in  a  gate-pillar, — when  one 
of  my  brother  apprentices  entered  the  work-shed,  laden 
with  a  bundle  of  newly  sharpened  irons  from  the  smithy, 
and  said  he  had  just  been  told  by  the  smith  that  the  great 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  dead.  I  returned  to  the  village 
of  Conon  Bridge,  through  the  woods  of  Conon  House. 
The  day  was  still  very  bad  :  the  rain  pattered  thick  on  the 
leaves,  and  fell  incessantly  in  large  drops  on  the  pathways. 
There  is  a  solitary,  picturesque  burying-ground  on  a  wooded 
hillock  beside  the  river,  with  thick  dark  woods  all  around  it, 
— one  of  the  two  burying-grounds  of  the  parish  of  Urquhart, 
—  which  I  would  fain  have  visited,  but  the  swollen  stream 
had  risen  high  around,  converting  the  hillock  into  an  island, 
and  forbade  access.  I  had  spent  many  an  hour  among  the 
tombs.  They  are  few  and  scattered,  and  of  the  true  antique 
cast,  —  roughened  with  death's  heads,  and  cross-bones,  and 
rudely  sculptured  armorial  bearings ;  and  on  a  broken  wall, 
that  marked  where  the  ancient  chapel  once  had  stood,  there 
might  be  seen,  in  the  year  1821,  a  small,  badly-cut  sun-dial, 
with  its  iron  gnomon  wasted  to  a  saw-edged  film,  that  con- 
tained more  oxide  than  metal.  The  only  fossils  described 
in  my  present  chapter  are  fossils  of  mind ;  and  the  reader 


188        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 


,  I  trust,  bear  with  me  should  I  produce  one  fossil  more 
of  this  somewhat  equivocal  class.  It  has  no  merit  to  re- 
commend it,  —  it  is  simply  an  organism  of  an  immature 
intellectual  formation,  in  which,  however,  as  in  the  Carbon- 
iferous period,  there  was  provision  made  for  the  necessities 
of  an  after  time.*  If  a  young  man  born  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  Tweed  for  speaking  English,  is  desirous  to  acquire 
the  ability  of  writing  it,  he  should  by  all  means  begin  by  . 
trying  to  write  it  in  verse. 

I  passed,  on  my  return  to  Dingwall,  through  the  village 
of  Conon  Bridge  ;  and  remembering  that  one  of  the 
masons  who  had  hewn  beside  me  in  the  work-shed  so  many 
years  before  lived  in  the  village  at  the  time,  I  went  direct 
to  the  house  he  had  inhabited,  to  see  whether  he  might  not 
be  there  still.  It  was  a  low-roofed  domicile  beside  the 
river,  but  in  the  days  of  my  old  acquaintance  it  had  pre- 
sented an  appearance  of  great  comfort  and  neatness  ;  and 
as  there  now  hung  an  air  of  neglect  about  it,  I  inferred 
that  it  had  found  some  other  tenant.  I  inquired,  however, 
at  the  door,  and  was  informed  that  Mr.  *  *  *  now  lived 
higher  up  the  street.  I  would  find  him,  it  was  added,  in 
the  best  house  on  the  right-hand  side,  —  the  house  with  a 
hewn  front,  and  a  shop  in  it.  He  kept  the  shop,  and  was 
the  owner  of  the  house,  and  had  another  house  besides, 
and  was  one  of  the  elders  of  the  Free  Church  in  Urquhnrt. 
Such  was  the  standing  of  my  old  acquaintance  the  journey- 
man mason  of  twenty-three  years  ago.  He  had  been,  when 
I  knew  him,  a  steady,  industrious,  religious  man,  —  with 
but  one  exception  the  only  contributor  to  missionary  and 
Bible  societies  among  a  numerous  party  of  workmen  ;  and 

*  These  remarks  refer  to  the  poem  "  On  Seeing  a  Sun-Dial  in  a  Church- 
yard," which  was  introduced  here  when  these  chapters  were  first  pub- 
lished in  the  "  Witness,"  but,  having  been  afterwards  inserted  in  the  tenth 
chapter  of  "  My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,"  is  not  here  reproduced. 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.          189 

he  was  now  occupying  a  respectable  place  in  his  village, 
and  was  one  of  the  voters  of  the  county.  Let  Chartism 
assert  what  it  pleases  on  the  one  hand,  and  Toryism  what  it 
may  on  the  other,  the  property-qualification  of  the  Reform 
Bill  is  essentially  a  good  one  for  such  a  country  as  Scotland. 
In  our  cities  it  no  doubt  extends  the  political  franchise  to  a 
fluctuating  class,  ill  hafted  in  society,  who  possess  it  one 
year  and  want  it  another ;  but  in  our  villages  and  smaller 
towns  it  hits  very  nearly  the  right  medium  for  forming  a 
premium  on  steady  industry  and  character,  and  for  securing 
that  at  least  the  mass  of  those  who  possess  it  should  be 
sober-minded  men,  with  a  stake  in  the  general  welfare.  In 
running  over  the  histories  of  the  various  voters  in  one  of 
our  smaller  towns,  I  found  that  nearly  one-half  of  the 
whole  had,  like  my  old  comrade  at  Conon  Bridge,  acquired 
for  themselves,  through  steady  and  industrious  habits,  the 
qualification  from  which  they  derive  their  vote.  My  com- 
panion failed  to  recognize  in  the  man  turned  of  forty  the 
smooth-cheeked  stripling  of  eighteen,  with  whom  he  had 
wrought  so  long  before.  I  soon  succeeded,  however,  in 
making  good  my  claim  to  his  acquaintance.  He  had  pre- 
viously established  the  identity  of  the  editor  of  his  news- 
paper with  his  quondam  fellow- workman,  and  a  single  link 
more  was  all  the  chain  wanted.  We  talked  over  old  mat- 
ters for  half  an  hour.  His  wife,  a  staid  respectable  matron, 
who,  when  I  had  been  last  in  the  district,  was  exactly  such 
a  person  as  her  eldest  daughter,  showed  me  an  Encyclope- 
dia, with  colored  prints,  which  she  wished  to  send,  if  she 
knew  but  how,  to  the  Free  Church  library.  I  walked  with 
him  through  his  garden,  and  saw  trees  loaded  with  yellow- 
cheeked  pippins,  where  I  had  once  seen  only  unproductive 
heath,  that  scantily  covered  a  baiTen  soil  of  ferruginous 
sand,  and  unwillingly  declining  an  invitation  to  wait  tea,  — 
for  a  previous  engagement  interfered,  —  I  took  leave  of 


190  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

the  family,  and  returned  to  DingwalL  The  following  morn- 
ing was  gloomy,  and  threatened  rain ;  and  giving  up  my 
intention  of  exploring  Strathpeffer,  I  took  the  morning 
coach  for  Invergordon,  and  then  walked  to  Cromarty, 
where  I  arrived  just  in  time  for  breakfast. 

I  marked,  from  the  top  of  the  coach,  about  two  miles  to 
the  north-east  of  Dingwall,  beds  of  a  deep  gray  sandstone, 
identical  in  color  and  appearance  with  some  of  the  gray 
sandstones  of  the  Middle  Old  Red  of  Forfarshire,  and 
learned  that  quarries  had  lately  been  opened  in  these  beds 
near  Montgerald.  The  Old  Red  Sandstone  lies  in  immense 
development  on  the  flanks  of  Ben-Wevis ;  and  it  is  just 
possible  that  the  analogue  of  the  gray  flagstones  of  Forfar 
may  be  found  among  its  upper  beds.  If  so,  the  quarriers 
should  be  instructed  to  look  hard  for  organic  remains,  — 
the  broad-headed  Cephalaspis,  so  characteristic  of  the  for- 
mation, and  the  huge  Crustacean,  its  contemporary,  that 
disported  in  plates  large  as  those  of  the  steel  mail  of  the 
later  ages  of  chivalry.  The  geologists  of  Dingwall,  —  if 
Dingwall  has  yet  got  its  geologists,  —  might  do  well  to 
attempt  determining  the  point.  I  found  the  science  much 
in  advance  in  Cromarty,  especially  among  the  ladies,  —  its 
great  patronizers  and  illustrators  everywhere,  —  and,  in 
not  a  few  localities,  extensive  contributors  to  its  hoards  of 
fact.  Just  as  I  arrived,  there  was  a  pic-nic  party  of  young 
people  setting  out  for  the  Lias  of  Shandwick.  They  spent 
the  day  among  its  richly  fossiliferous  shales  and  limestones, 
and  brought  back  with  them  in  the  evening,  Ammonites 
and  Gryphites  enough  to  store  a  museum.  Cromarty  had 
been  visited  during  the  summer  by  geologists  speaking  a 
foreign  tongue,  but  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  occult 
yet  common  language  of  the  rocks,  and  deeply  interested 
in  the  stories  which  the  rocks  told.  The  vessels  in  which 
the  Crown  Prince  of  Denmark  voyaged  to  the  Faroe  Isles 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG  THE   HEBRIDES.         191 

had  been  for  some  time  in  the  bay ;  and  the  Danes,  his 
companions,  votaries  of  the  stony  science,  zealously  plied 
chisel  and  hammer  among  the  Old  Red  Sandstones  of  tho 
coast.  A  townsman  informed  me  that  he  had  seen  a  Dan- 
ish Professor  hammering  like  the  tutelary  Thor  of  his 
coxintry  among  the  nodules  in  which  I  had  found  the  first 
Pterichthys  and  first  Diplacanthus  ever  disinterred;  and 
that  the  Professor,  ever  and  anon  as  he  laid  open  a  speci- 
men, brought  it  to  a  huge  smooth  boulder,  on  which  there 
lay  a  copy  of  the  "  Old  Red  Sandstone,"  to  ascertain  from 
the  descriptions  and  prints  its  family  and  name.  Shall  I 
confess  that  the  circumstance  gratified  me  exceedingly? 
There  are  many  elements  of  Discord  among  mankind  in 
the  present  time,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  —  so  many, 
that  I  am  afraid  we  need  entertain  no  hope  of  seeing  an 
end,  in  at  least  our  day,  to  controversy  and  war.  And  we 
should  be  all  the  better  pleased,  therefore,  to  witness  the 
increase  of  those  links  of  union,  —  such  as  the  harmonizing 
bonds  of  a  scientific  sympathy,  —  the  tendency  of  which  is 
to  draw  men  together  in  a  kindly  spirit,  and  the  formation 
of  which  involves  no  sacrifice  of  principle,  moral  or  religious. 
I  do  not  think  that  the  foreigner,  after  geologizing  in  my 
company,  would  have  had  any  very  vehement  desire,  in 
the  event  of  a  war,  to  cut  me  down,  or  to  knock  me  on  the 
head.  I  am  afraid  this  chapter  would  require  a  long 
apology,  and  for  a  long  apology  space  is  wanting.  But 
there  will  be  no  egotism,  and  much  geology,  in  my  next. 


CHAPTER    XI 

Ichthyolite  Beds  — An  interesting  Discovery  —  Two  Storeys  of  Organic  Remains 
iu  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  —  Ancient  Ocean  of  Lower  Old  Red — Two  great 
Catastrophes — Ancient  Fish  Scales  —  Their  skilful  Mechanism  displayed  by 
examples  —  Bone  Lips  —  Arts  of  the  Slater  and  Tiler  as  old  as  Old  Red 
Sandstone  —  Jet  Trinkets  —  Flint  Arrow-heads  —  Vitrified  Forts  of  Scotland 
—  Style  of  grouping  Lower  Old  Red  Fossils— Illustration  from  Cromarty 
Fishing  Phenomena  —  Singular  Remains  of  Holoptychius  —  Ramble  with  Mr. 
Robert  Dick— Color  of  the  Planet  Mars  — Tombs  never  dreamed  of  by 
Hervey  —  Skeleton  of  the  Bruce  —  Gigantic  Holoptychius  —  "Coal  money 
Currency  "  — Upper  Boundary  of  Lower  Old  Red  — Every  one  may  add  to 
the  Store  of  Geological  Facts  —  Discoveries  of  Messrs.  Dick  and  Peach. 

I  SPESTT  one  long  day  in  exploring  the  ichthyolite  beds 
on  both  sides  the  Cromarty  Frith,  and  another  long  day 
in  renewing  my  acquaintance  with  the  Liasic  deposit  at 
Shandwick.  In  beating  over  the  Lias,  though  I  picked  up 
a  few  good  specimens,  I  acquired  no  new  facts ;  but  in  re- 
examining  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  and  its  organisms  I  was 
rather  more  successful.  I  succeeded  in  eliciting  some 
curious  points  not  yet  recorded,  which,  with  the  details  of 
an  interesting  discovery  made  in  the  far  north  in  this  for- 
mation, I  may  be  perhaps  able  to  weave  into  a  chapter 
somewhat  more  geological  than  my  last. 

Some  of  the  readers  of  my  little  work  on  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  will  perhaps  remember  that  I  described  the 
organisms  of  that  ancient  system  as  occurring  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Cromarty  mainly  on  one  platform,  raised  rather 
more  than  a  hundred  feet  over  the  great  Conglomerate ; 
and  that  on  this  platform,  as  if  suddenly  overtaken  by 
some  wide-spread  catastrophe,  the  ichthyolites  lie  by 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE  AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         193 

thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  in  every  attitude  of  dis- 
tortion and  terror.  Wo  see  the  spiked  wings  of  the 
Pterichthys  elevated  to  the  full,  as  they  had  been  erected 
in  the  fatal  moment  of  anger  and  alarm,  and  the  bodies  of 
the  Cheirolepis  and  Cheiracanthus  bent  head  to  tail,  in  the 
stiff  posture  into  which  they  had  curled  when  the  last  pang 
was  over.  In  various  places  in  the  neighborhood  the  ich- 
thyolites  are  found  in  situ  in  their  coffin-like  nodules, 
where  it  is  impossible  to  trace  the  relation  of  the  beds  in 
which  they  occur  to  the  rocks  above  and  below ;  and  I 
had  suspected  for  years  that  in  at  least  some  of  the  locali- 
ties, they  could  not  have  belonged  to  the  lower  platform 
of  death,  but  to  some  posterior  catastrophe  that  had  strewed 
with  carcasses  some  upper  platform.  I  had  thought  over 
the  matter  many  a  time  and  oft  when  I  should  have  been 
asleep,  —  for  it  is  marvellous  how  questions  of  the  kind 
grow  upon  a  man ;  and  now,  selecting  as  a  hopeful  scene 
of  inquiry  the  splendid  section  under  the  Northern  Sutor, 
I  set  myself  doggedly  to  determine  whether  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  in  this  part  of  the  country  has  not  at  least  its 
two  storeys  of  organic  remains,  each  of  which  had  been 
equally  a  scene  of  sudden  mortality.  I  was  entirely  suc- 
cessful. The  lower  ichthyolite  bed  occurs  exactly  one 
hundred  and  fourteen  feet  over  the  great  Conglomerate ; 
and  three  hundred  and  eighteen  feet  higher  up  I  found  a 
second  ichthyolite  bed,  as  rich  in  fossils  as  the  first,  with 
its  thorny  Acanthodians  twisted  half  round,  as  if  still  in 
the  agony  of  dissolution,  and  its  Pterichthyes  still  extend- 
ing their  spear-like  arms  in  the  attitude  of  defence.  The 
discovery  enabled  me  to  assign  to  their  true  places  the 
various  ichthyolite  beds  of  the  district.  Those  in  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood  of  the  town,  and  a  bed  which  abuts 
on  the  Lias  at  Eathie,  belong  to  the  upper  platform ;  while 
those  which  appear  in  Eathie  Burn,  and  along  the  shores 

17 


194  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;     OR, 

at  Navity,  belong  to  the  lower.  The  chief  interest  of  the 
discovery,  however,  arises  from  the  light  which  it  throws 
on  the  condition  of  the  ancient  ocean  of  the  Lower  Old 
Red,  and  on  the  extreme  precariousness  of  the  tenure  on 
which  the  existence  of  its  numerous  denizens  was  held. 
In  a  section  of  little  more  than  a  hundred  yards  there  occur 
at  least  two  platforms  of  violent  death, — platforms  inscribed 
with  unequivocal  evidence  of  two  great  catastrophes  which 
over  wide  areas  depopulated  the  seas.  In  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  of  Caithness  there  are  many  such  platforms: 
storey  rises  over  storey;  and  the  floor  of  each  bears  its 
closely- written  record  of  disaster  and  sudden  extinction. 
Pompeii  in  this  northern  locality  lies  over  Herculaneum, 
and  Anglano  over  both.  We  cease  to  wonder  why  the 
higher  order  of  animals  should  not  have  been  introduced 
into  a  scene  of  being  that  had  so  recently  arisen  out  of 
chaos,  and  over  which  the  reign  of  death  so  frequently 
returned.  In  a  somewhat  different  sense  from  that  indi- 
cated by  the  poet  of  the  "  Seasons," 

"  As  yet  the  trembling  year  was  unconfirmed, 
And  winter  oft  at  eve  resumed  the  gale." 

Lying  detached  in  the  stratified  clay  of  the  fish-beds,  there 
occur  in  abundance  single  plates  and  scales  of  ichthyolites, 
which,  as  they  can  be  removed  entire,  and  viewed  on  both 
sides,  illustrate  points  in  the  mechanism  of  the  creatures  to 
which  they  belonged  that  cannot  be  so  clearly  traced  in  the 
same  remains  when  locked  up  in  stone.  There  is  a  vast  deal 
of  skilful  carpentry  exhibited — if  carpentry  I  may  term  it  — 
in  the  coverings  of  these  ancient  ichthyolites.  In  the  com- 
moner fish  of  our  existing  seas  the  scales  are  so  thin  and 
flexible,  —  mere  films  of  horn,  — that  there  is  no  particularly 
nice  fitting  reqiiired  in  their  arrangement.  The  condition, 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    195 

too,  through  which  portions  of  unprotected  skin  may  be 
presented  to  the  water,  as  over  and  between  the  rays  of  the 
fins,  and  on  the  snout  arid  lips,  obviates  many  a  mechanical 
difficulty  of  the  earlier  period,  when  it  was  a  condition,  as 
the  remains  demonstrate,  that  no  bit  of  naked  skin  should 
be  exposed,  and  when  the  scales  and  plates  were  formed, 
not  of  thin  horny  films,  but  of  solid  pieces  of  bone.  Thin 
slates  lie  on  the  roof  of  a  modern  dwelling,  without  any  nice 
fitting;  —  they  are  scales  of  the  modern  construction:  but 
it  required  much  nice  fitting  to  make  thick  flagstones  lie  on 
the  roof  of  an  ancient  cathedral;  —  they,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  scales  of  the  ancient  type.  Again,  it  requires  no 
ingenuity  whatever,  to  sufler  the  hands  and  face  to  go 
naked,  —  and  such  is  the  condition  of  our  existing  fish,  with 
their  soft  skinny  snouts  and  membranous  fins ;  but  to  cover 
the  hands  with  flexible  steel  gauntlets,  and  the  face  with 
such  an  iron  mask  as  that  worn  by  the  mysterious  prisoner 
of  Louis  XIV.,  would  require  a  very  large  amount  of  in- 
genuity indeed ;  and  the  ancient  ichthyolites  of  the  Old  Red 
were  all  masked  and  gauntleted.  Now  the  detached  plates 
and  scales  of  the  stratified  clay  exhibit  not  a  few  of  the  me- 
chanical contrivances  through  which  the  bony  coverings  of 
these  fish  were  made  to  unite  —  as  in  coats  of  old  armor  — 
great  strength  with  great  flexibility.  The  scales  of  the 
Osteolepis  and  Diplopterus  I  found  nicely  bevelled  atop  and 
at  one  of  the  sides ;  so  that  where  they  overlapped  each 
other,  —  for  at  the  joints  not  a  needle-point  could  be 
insinuated,  —  the  thickness  of  the  two  scales  equalled  but 
the  thickness  of  one  scale  in  the  centre,  and  thus  an  equable 
covering  was  formed.  I  brought  with  me  some  of  these 
detached  scales,  and  they  now  lie  fitted  together  on  the 
table  before  me,  like  pieces  of  complicated  hewn  work  care, 
fully  arranged  on  the  ground  ere  the  workman  transfers 
them  to  their  place  on  the  wall.  In  the  smaller-scaled  fish, 


196        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

such  as  the  Cheiracanthus  and  Cheirolepis,  a  different  prin- 
ciple obtained.  The  minute  glittering  rhombs  of  bone  were 
set  thick  on  the  skin,  like  those  small  scales  of  metal  sewed 
on  leather,  that  formed  an  inferior  kind  of  armor  still  in  use 
in  eastern  nations,  and  which  was  partially 'used  in  our  own 
country  just  ere  the  buff  coat  altogether  superseded  the 
coat  of  mail.  I  found  a  beautiful  piece  of  jaw  in  the  clay, 
with  the  enamelled  tusks  bristling  on  its  brightly  enamelled 
edge,  like  iron  teeth  in  an  iron  rake.  Mr.  Parkinson  ex- 
presses some  wonder,  in  his  work  on  fossils,  that  in  a  fine 
ichthyolite  in  the  British  Museum,  not  only  the  teeth  should 
have  been  preserved,  but  also  the  lips  ;  but  we  now  know 
enough  of  the  construction  of  the  more  ancient  fish,  to  cease 
wondering.  The  lips  were  formed  of  as  solid  bone  as  the 
teeth  themselves,  and  had  as  fair  a  chance  of  being  pre- 
served entire ;  just  as  the  metallic  rim  of  a  toothed  wheel 
has  as  fair  a  chance  of  being  preserved  as  the  metallic  teeth 
that  project  from  it.  I  was  interested  in  marking  the 
various  modes  of  attachment  to  the  body  of  the  animal 
which  the  detached  scales  exhibit.  The  slater  fastens  on 
his  slates  with  nails  driven  into  the  wood :  the  tiler  secures 
his  tiles  by  means  of  a. raised  bar  on  the  under  side  of  each, 
that  locks  into  a  corresponding  bar  of  deal  in  the  frame- 
work of  the  roof.  Now  in  some  of  the  scales  I  found  the 
art  of  the  tiler  anticipated;  there  were  bars  raised  on  their 
inner  sides,  to  lay  hold  of  the  skin  beneath;  while  in 
others  it  was  the  art  of  the  slater  that  had  been  antici- 
pated, —  the  scales  had  been  slates  fastened  down  by  long 
nails  driven  in  slantwise,  which  were,  however,  mere  pro- 
longations of  the  scale  itself.  Great  truths  may  be  repeated 
until  they  become  truisms,  and  we  fail  to  note  what  they  in 
reality  convey.  The  great  truth  that  all  knowledge  dwelt 
without  beginning  in  the  adorable  Creator  must,  I  am 
afraid,  have  been  thus  common-placed  in  my  mind ;  for  at 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.         197 

first  it  struck  me  as  wonderful  that  the  humble  arts  of  the 
tiler  and  slater  should  have  existed  in  perfection  in  the  times 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone. 

I  had  often  remarked  amid  the  fossiliferous  limestones 
of  the  Lower  Old  Red,  minute  specks  and  slender  veins 
of  a  glossy  bituminous  substance  somewhat  resembling  jet, 
sufficiently  hard  to  admit  of  a  tolerable  polish,  and  which 
emitted  in  the  fire  a  bright  flame.  I  had  remarked,  fur- 
ther, its  apparent  identity  with  a  substance  used  by  the 
ancient  inhabitants  of  the  northern  part  of  the  country  in 
the  manufacture  of  their  rude  ornaments,  as  occasionally 
found  in  sepulchral  urns,  such  as  beads  of  an  elliptical 
form,  and  flat  parallelograms,  perforated  edge-wise  by 
some  four  or  five  holes  a-piece ;  but  I  had  failed  hitherto 
in  detecting  in  the  stone,  portions  of  sufficient  bulk  for  the 
formation  of  either  the  beads  or  the  parallelograms.  On 
this  visit  to  the  ichthyolite  beds,  however,  I  picked  up  a 
nodule  that  inclosed  a  mass  of  the  jet  large  enough  to 
admit  of  being  fashioned  into  trinkets  of  as  great  bulk  as 
any  of  the  ancient  ones  I  have  yet  seen,  and  a  portion  of 
which  I  succeeded  in  actually  forming  into  a  parallelo- 
gram, that  could  not  have  been  distinguished  from  those 
of  our  old  sepulchral  urns.  It  is  interesting  enough  to 
think,  that  these  fossiliferous  beds,  altogether  unknown  to 
the  people  of  the  country  for  many  centuries,  and  which, 
when  I  first  discovered  them,  some  twelve  or  fourteen 
years  ago,  were  equally  unknown  to  geologists,  should 
have  been  resorted  to  for  this  substance,  perhaps  thou- 
sands of  years  ago,  by  the  savage  aborigines  of  the  dis- 
trict. But  our  antiquities  of  the  remoter  class  furnish  us 
with  several  such  facts.  It  is  comparatively  of  late  years 
that  we  have  become  acquainted  with  the  yellow  chalk- 
flints  of  Banifshire  and  Aberdeen ;  though  before  the 
introduction  of  iron  into  the  country  they  seem  to  have 

17* 


198  THE   CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

been  well  known  all  over  the  north  of  Scotland.  I  have 
never  yet  seen  a  stone  arrow-head  found  in  any  of  the 
northern  localities,  that  had  not  been  fashioned  out  of  this 
hard  and  splintery  substance,  —  a  sufficient  proof  that  our 
ancestors,  ere  they  had  formed  their  first  acquaintance 
with  the  metals,  were  intimately  acquainted  with  at  least 
the  mechanical  properties  of  the  chalk-flint,  and  knew 
where  in  Scotland  it  was  to  be  found.  They  were  mineral- 
ogists enough,  too,  as  their  stone  battle-axes  testify,  to  know 
that  the  best  tool-making  rock  is  the  axe-stone  of  Wer- 
ner ;  and  in  some  localities  they  must  have  brought  their 
supply  of  this  rather  rare  mineral  from  great  distances.  A 
history  of  those  arts  of  savage  life,  as  shown  in  the  relics 
of  our  earlier  antiquities,  which  the  course  of  discovery 
serevd  thoroughly  to  supplant,  but  which  could  not  have 
been  carried  on  without  a  knowledge  of  substances  and 
qualities  afterwards  lost,  until  re-discovered  by  scientific 
curiosity,  would  form  of  itself  an  exceedingly  curious  chap- 
ter. The  art  of  the  gun-flint  maker  (and  it,  too,  promises 
soon  to  pass  into  extinction)  is  unquestionably  a  curious 
one,  but  not  a  whit  more  curious  or  more  ingenious  than 
the  ai't  possessed  by  the  rude  inhabitants  of  our  country 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  of  chipping  arrow-heads  with 
an  astonishing  degree  of  neatness  out  of  the  same  stub- 
born material.  They  found,  however,  that  though  flint 
made  a  serviceable  arrow-head,  it  was  by  much  too  brittle 
for  an  adze  or  battle-axe;  and  sought  elsewhere  than 
among  the  Banffshire  gravels  for  the  rock  out  of  which 
these  were  to  be  wrought.  Where  they  found  it  in  our 
northern  provinces  I  have  not  yet  ascertained.  It  is  but 
a  short  time  since  I  came  to  know  that  they  were  before- 
hand with  me  in  the  discovery  of  the  bituminous  jet  of 
the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone,  and  were  excavators 
among  its  fossiliferous  beds.  The  vitrified  forts  of  the 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          199 

north  of  Scotland  give  evidence  of  yet  another  of  the 
obsolete  arts.  Before  the  savage  inhabitants  of  the  coun- 
tiy  were  ingenious  enough  to  know  the  uses  of  mortar,  or 
were  furnished  with  tools  sufficiently  hard  and  solid  to 
dress  a  bit  of  sandstone,  they  must  have  been  acquainted 
with  the  chemical  fact,  that  with  the  assistance  of  fluxes,  a 
pile  of  stones  could  be  fused  into  a  solid  wall,  and  with 
the  mineralogical  fact,  that  there  are  certain  kinds  of 
stones  which  yield  much  more  readily  to  the  heat  than 
others.  The  art  of  making  vitrified  forts  was  the  art  of 
making  ramparts  of  rock  through  a  knowledge  of  the  less 
obstinate  earths  and  the  more  powerful  fluxes.  I  have 
been  informed  by  Mr.  Patrick  Duff  of  Elgin,  that  he 
found,  in  breaking  open  a  vitrified  fragment  detached 
from  an  ancient  hill-fort,  distinct  impressions  of  the  ser- 
rated kelp-weed  of  our  shores,  —  the  identical  flux  which, 
in  its  character  as  the  kelp  of  commerce,  was  so  exten- 
sively used  in  our  glass-houses  only  a  few  years  ago. 

I  was  struck,  during  my  explorations  at  this  time,  as  I 
had  been  often  before,  by  the  style  of  grouping,  if  I  may 
so  speak,  which  obtains  among  the  Lower  Old  Red  fossils. 
In  no  deposit  with  which  I  am  acquainted,  however  rich 
in  remains,  have  all  its  ichthyolites  been  found  lying 
together.  The  collector  finds  some  one  or  two  species 
very  numerous;  some  two  or  three  considerably  less  so, 
but  not  unfrequent;  some  one  or  two  more,  perhaps, 
exceedingly  rare;  and  a  few,  though  abundant  in  other 
localities,  that  never  occur  at  all.  In  the  Cromarty  beds, 
for  instance,  I  never  found  a  Holoptychius,  and  a  Dipterus 
only  once ;  the  Diplopterus  is  rare ;  the  Glyptolepis  not 
common ;  the  Cheirolepis  and  Pterichthys  more  so,  but 
not  very  abundant ;  the  Cheiracanthus  and  Diplacanthus, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  numerous;  and  the  Osteolepis  and 
Coccosteus  more  numerous  still.  But  in  other  deposits  of 


200  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

» 

the  same  formation,  though  a  similar  style  of  grouping 
obtains,  the  proportions  are  reversed  "with  regard  to  spe- 
cies and  genera :  the  fish  rare  in  one  locality  abound  in 
another.  In  Banniskirk,  for  instance,  the  Dipterus  is 
exceedingly  common,  while  the  Osteolepis  and  Coccosteus 
are  rare,  and  the  Cheiracanthus  and  Cheirolepis  seem 
altogether  awanting.  Again,  in  the  Morayshire  deposits, 
the  Glyptolepis  is  abundant,  and  noble  specimens  of  the  . 
Lower  Old  Red  Holoptychius  —  of  which  more  anon  — 
are  to  be  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  Thurso,  associated 
with  remains  of  the  Diplopterus,  Coccosteus,  Dipterus,  and 
Osteolepis.  The  fact  may  be  deemed  of  some  little  inter- 
est by  the  geologist,  and  may  serve  to  inculcate  caution, 
by  showing  that  it  is  not  always  safe  to  determine  regai-d- 
ing  the  place  or  age  of  subordinate  formations  from  the 
per  centage  of  certain  fossils  which  they  may  be  found  to 
contain,  or  from  the  fact  that  they  should  want  some  cer- 
tain organisms  of  the  system  to  which  they  belong,  and 
possess  others.  These  differences  may  and  do  exist  in 
contemporary  deposits ;  and  I  had  a  striking  example,  on 
this  occasion,  of  their  dependence  on  a  simple  law  of 
instinct,  which  is  as  active  in  producing  the  same  kind  of 
phenomena  now  as  it  seems  to  have  been  in  the  earlier 
days  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  The  Cromarty  and 
Moray  Friths,  mottled  with  fishing  boats  (for  the  bustle  of 
the  herring  fishers  had  just  begun),  stretched  out  before 
me.  A  few  hundred  yards  from  the  shore  there  was  a 
yawl  lying  at  anchor,  with  an  old  fisherman  and  a  few 
boys  angling  from  the  stern  for  sillocks  (the  young  of  the 
coal-fish)  and  for  small  rock-cod.  A  few  miles  higher  up, 
where  the  Cromarty  Frith  expands  into  a  wide  land- 
locked basin,  with  shallow  sandy  shores,  there  was  a 
second  yawl  engaged  in  fishing  for  flounders  and  small 
skate,  —  for  such  are  the  kinds  of  fish  that  frequent  the 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          201 

flat  shallows  of  the  basin.  A  turbot-net  lay  drying  in  the 
sun :  it  served  to  remind  me  that  some  six  or  eight  miles 
away,  in  an  opposite  direction,  there  is  a  deep-sea  bank, 
on  which  turbot,  halibut,  and  large  skate  are  found. 
Numerous  boats  were  stretching  down  the  Moray  Frith, 
bound  for  the  banks  of  a  more  distant  locality,  frequented 
at  this  early  stage  of  the  herring  fishing  by  shoals  of  her- 
rings, with  their  attendant  dog-fish  and  cod ;  and  I  knew 
that  in  yet  another  deep-sea  range  there  lie  haddock  and 
whiting  banks.  Almost  every  variety  of  existing  fish  in 
the  two  friths  has  its  own  peculiar  habitat ;  and  were  they 
to  be  destroyed  by  some  sudden  catastrophe,  and  pre- 
served by  some  geologic  process,  on  the  banks  and  shoals 
which  they  frequent,  there  would  occur  exactly  the  same 
phenomena  of  grouping  in  the  fossiliferous  contempo- 
raneous deposits  which  they  would  thus  constitute,  as  we 
find  exhibited  by  the  deposits  of  the  Lower  Old  Red 
Sandstone. 

The  remains  of  Holoptychius  occur,  I  have  said,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Thurso.  I  must  now  add,  that  very  sin- 
gular remains  they  are,  —  full  of  interest  to  the  naturalist, 
and,  in  great  part  at  least,  new  to  Geology.  My  readers, 
votaries  of  the  stony  science,  must  be  acquainted  with  the 
masterly  paper  of  Mr.  Sedgwick  and  Sir  R.  Murchison 
"On  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  of  Caithness  and  the  North 
of  Scotland  generally,"  which  forms  part  of  the  second  vol- 
ume (second  series)  of  the  "  Transactions  of  the  Geological 
Society,"  and  with  the  description  which  it  furnishes, 
among  many  others,  of  the  rocks  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Thurso.  Calcareo-bituminous  flags,  grits,  and  shales,  of 
which  the  paving  flagstones  of  Caithness  may  be  regarded 
as  the  general  type,  occur  on  the  shores,  in  reefs,  crags, 
and  precipices;  here  stretching  along  the  coast  in  the 
form  of  flat,  uneven  bulwarks :  there  rising  over  it  in  steep 


202  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

walls ;  yonder  leaning  to  the  surf,  stratum  against  stratum, 
like  flights  of  stairs  thrown  down  from,  their  slant  position 
to  the  level ;  in  some  places  severed  by  faults ;  in  others 
cast  about  in  every  possible  direction,  as  if  broken  and 
contorted  by  a  thousand  antagonist  movements;  but  in 
their  general  bearing  rising  towards  the  east,  until  the 
whole  calcareo-bituminous  schists  of  which  this  important 
member  of  the  system  is  composed  disappear  under  the 
red  sandstones  of  Dunnet  Head.  Such,  in  effect,  is  the 
general  description  of  Mr.  Sedgwick  and  Sir  R.  Murchi- 
son,  of  the  rocks  in  the  neighborhood  of  Thurso.  It  indi- 
cates further,  that  in  at  least  three  localities  in  the  range 
there  occur  in  the  grits  and  shales,  scales  and  impressions 
of  fish.  And  such  was  the  ascertained  geology  of  the 
deposit  when  taken  up  last  year  by  an  ingenious  trades- 
man of  Thurso,  Mr.  Robert  Dick,  whose  patient  explora- 
tions, concentrated  mainly  on  the  fossil  remains  of  this 
deposit,  bid  fair  to  add  to  our  knowledge  of  the  ichthy- 
ology of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  Let  us  accompany  Mr. 
Dick  in  one  of  his  exploratory  rambles.  The  various 
organisms  which  he  disinterred  I  shall  describe  from  speci- 
mens before  me,  which  I  owe  to  his  kindness,  —  the  locali- 
ties in  which  he  found  them,  from  a  minute  and  interest- 
ing description,  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  his  pen. 

Leaving  behind  us  the  town  at  the  bottom  of  its  deep 
bay,  we  set  out  to  explore  a  bluff-headed  parallelogramical 
promontory,  bounded  by  Thurso  Bay  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Murkle  Bay  on  the  other,  and  which  presents  to  the 
open  sea,  in  the  space  that  stretches  between,  an  undulat- 
ing line  of  iron-bound  coast,  exposed  to  the  roll  of  the 
northern  ocean.  We  pass  two  stations  in  which  the  hard 
Caithness  flagstones  so  well  known  in  commerce  are 
jointed  by  saws  wrought  by  machinery.  As  is  common 
in  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  in  which  scarce  any  stratum 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    203 

solid  enough  to  be  of  value  to  the  workmen,  whether  for 
building  or  paving,  contains  good  specimens,  we  find  but 
little  to  detain  us  in  the  dark  coherent  beds  from  which 
the  flags  are  quarried.  Here  and  there  a  few  glittering 
scales  occur;  here  and  there  a  few  coprolitic  patches; 
here  and  there  the  faint  impression  of  a  fucoid ;  but  no 
organism  sufficiently  entire  to  be  transferred  to  the  bag. 
As  we  proceed  outwards,  however,  and  the  fitful  breeze 
comes  laden  with  the  keen  freshness  of  the  open  sea,  we 
find  among  the  hard  dark  strata  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  Thurso  Castle,  a  paler-colored  bed  of  fine- 
grained semi-calcareous  stone,  charged  with  remains  in  a 
state  of  coherency  and  keeping  better  fitted  to  repay  the 
labor  of  the  specimen-collector.  The  inclosing  matrix  is 
comparatively  soft:  when  employed  in  the  neighboring 
fences  as  a  building  stone,  we  see  it  resolved  by  the  skyey 
influences  into  well-nigh  its  original  mud;  whereas  the 
organisms  which  it  contains  are  composed  of  a  hard,  scarce 
destructible  substance,  —  bone  steeped  in  bitumen;  and 
the  enamel  on  their  outer  surfaces  is  still  as  glossy  and 
bright  as  the  japan  on  a,  papier-mache  tray  fresh  from  the 
hands  of  the  workman.  Their  deep  black,  too,  contrasts 
strongly  with  the  pale  hue  of  the  stone.  They  consist 
chiefly  of  scales,  spines,  dermal  plates,  snouts,  skull-caps, 
and  vegetable  impressions.  A  little  farther  on,  in  a  thick 
bed  interposed  between  two  faults,  the  same  kind  of 
remains  occur  in  the  same  abundance,  largely  mingled 
with  scales  and  teeth  of  Holoptychius,  tuberculated  plates, 
and  coprolitic  blotches ;  and  further  on  still,  in  a  rubbly 
flagstone,  near  where  a  little  stream  comes  trotting  mer- 
rily from  the  uplands  to  the  sea,  there  occur  skull-plates, 
—  at  least  one  of  which  has  been  disinterred  entire, — 
large  and  massy  as  the  helmets  of  ancient  warriors.  We 
have  now  reached  the  outer  point  of  the  promontory, 


204  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OK, 

where  the  seaward  wave,  as  it  comes  rolling  unbroken 
from  the  Pole,  crosses,  in  nearing  the  shore,  the  eastward 
sweep  of  the  great  Gulf-stream,  and  then  casts  itself  head- 
long on  the  rocks.  The  view  has  been  extending  with 
almost  every  step  we  have  taken,  and  it  has  now  expanded 
into  a  wide  and  noble  prospect  of  ocean  and  bay,  island 
and  main,  bold  surf-skirted  headlands,  and  green  retiring 
hollows.  Yonder,  on  the  one  hand,  are  the  Orkneys,  ris- 
ing dim  and  blue  over  the  foam-mottled  currents  of  the 
Pentland  Frith ;  and  yonder,  on  the  other,  the  far-stretch- 
ing, promontory  of  Holborn  Head,  with  the  line  of  coast 
that  sweeps  along  the  opposite  side  of  the  bay ;  here  sink- 
ing in  abrupt  flagstone  precipices  direct  into  the  tide ; 
there  receding  in  grassy  banks  formed  of  a  dark  blue  dilu- 
vium. The  fields  and  dwellings  of  living  men  mingle  in 
the  landscape  with  old  episcopal  ruins  and  ancient  bury- 
ing-grounds ;  and  yonder,  Avell-nigh  in  the  opening  of  the 
Frith,  gleams  ruddy  to  the  sun,  —  a  true  blood-colored 
blush,  when  all  around  is  azure  or  pale,  —  the  tall  Red 
Sandstone  precipices  of  Dunnet  Head.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  the  planet  Mars  may  owe  its  red  color  to  the 
extensive  development  of  some  such  formation  as  the  Old 
Red  Sandstone  of  our  own  planet :  the  existing  formation 
in  Mare  may,  at  the  present  time,  it  is  said,  be  a  Red 
Sandstone  formation.  It  seems  much  more  probable, 
however,  that  the  red  flush  which  characterizes  the  whole 
of  that  planet,  —  its  oceans  as  certainly  as  its  continents, 
—  should  be  rather  owing  to  some  widely-diffused  pecu- 
liarity of  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  than  to  aught  pecu- 
liar in  the  varied  surface  of  land  and  water  which  that 
atmosphere  surrounds;  but  certainly  the  extensive  exig- 
ence of  such  a  red  system  might  produce  the  effect.  If 
the  rocks  and  soils  of  Dunnet  Head  formed  average  speci- 
mens of  those  of  our  globe  generally,  we  could  look  across 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          205 

the  heavens  at  Mars  with  a  disk  vastly  more  rubicund  and 
fiery  than  his  own.  The  earth,  as  seen  from  the  moon^ 
would  seem  such  a  planet  bathed  in  blood  as  the  moon  at 
its  rising  frequently  appeai-s  from  the  earth. 

We  have  rounded  the  promontory.  The  beds  exposed 
along  the  coast  to  the  lashings  of  the  surf  are  of  various 
texture  and  character,  —  here  tough,  bituminous,  and  dark; 
there  of  a  pale  hue,  and  so  hard  that  they  ring  to  the  ham- 
mer like  plates  of  cast  iron  ;  yonder  soft,  unctuous,  and 
green,  —  a  kind  of  chloride  sandstone.  And  these  A'ery 
various  powers  of  resistance  and  degrees  of  hardness  we 
find  indicated  by  the  rough  irregularities  of  the  surface. 
The  softer  parts  retire  in  long  trench-like  hollows,  —  the 
harder  stand  out  in  sharp  irregular  ridges.  Fossils  abound: 
the  bituminous  beds  glitter  bright  with  glossy  quadrangu- 
lar scales,  that  look  like  sheets  of  black  mica  inclosed  in 
granite.  We  find  jaws,  teeth,  tubercled  plates,  skull-caps, 
spines,  and  fucoids,  —  "tombs  among  which  to  contem- 
plate," says  Mr.  Dick,  "  of  which  Hervey  never  dreamed." 
The  condition  of  complete  keeping  in  which  we  discover 
some  of  these  remains,  even  when  exposed  to  the  incessant 
dash  of  the  surf,  seems  truly  wonderful.  We  see  scales  of 
Holoptychius  standing  up  in  bold  relief  from  the  hard  cherty 
rock  that  has  worn  from  around  them,  with  all  the  tub- 
ercles and  wavy  ridges  of  their  sculpture  entire.  This  state 
of  keeping  seems  to  be  wholly  owing  to  the  curious  chemi- 
cal change  that  has  taken  place  in  their  substance.  Ere  the 
skeleton  of  the  Bruce,  disinterred  entire  after  the  lapse  of 
five  centuries,  was  recommitted  to  the  tomb,  there  were 
such  measures  taken  to  secure  its  preservation,  that  were  it 
to  be  again  disinterred  even  after  as  many  centuries  more 
had  passed,  it  might  be  found  retaining  unbroken  its  gigan- 
tic proportions.  There  was  molten  pitch  poured  over  the 
bones  in  a  state  of  sufficient  fluidity  to  permeate  all  their 

18 


200  THE    CRUISE   OP  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

pores,  and  fill  up  the  central  hollows,  and  which,  soon  hard- 
ening  around  them,  formed  a  bituminous  matrix,  in  which 
they  may  lie  unchanged  for  more  than  a  thousand  years. 
Now,  exactly  such  was  the  process  of  keeping  to  which 
nature  resorted  with  these  skeletons  of  the  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone. The  animal  matter  with  which  they  were  charged 
had  been  converted  into  a  hard  black  bitumen.  Like  the 
bones  of  the  Bruce,  they  are  bones  steeped  in  pitch ;  and 
so  thoroughly  is  every  pore  and  hollow  still  occupied,  that, 
when  cast  into  the  fire,  they  flamed  like  torches.  In  one  of 
the  beds  at  which  we  have  now  arrived  Mr.  Dick  found  the 
occipital  plates  of  a  Holoptychius  of  gigantic  proportions. 
The  frontal  plates  measured  full  sixteen  inches  across,  and 
from  the  nape  of  the  neck  to  a  little  above  the  place  of  the 
eyes,  full  eighteen ;  while  a  single  plate  belonging  to  the 
lower  part  of  the  head  measures  thirteen  and  a  half  inches 
by  seven  and  a  half.  I  have  remarked,  in  my  little  work 
on  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  —  founding  on  a  large  amount 
of  negative  evidence,  that  a  mediocrity  of  size  and  bulk 
seems  to  have  obtained  among  the  fish  of  the  Lower  Old 
Red,  though  in  at  least  the  Upper  formation,  a  considerable 
increase  in  both  took  place.  A  single  piece  of  positive 
evidence,  however,  outweighs  whole  volumes  of  a  merely 
negative  kind.  From  the  entire  plate  now  in  my  possession, 
which  is  identical  with  one  figured  in  Mr.  Noble  of  St. 
Madoes'  specimen,  and  from  the  huge  fragments  of  the 
upper  plates  now  before  me,  some  of  which  are  full  five- 
eighth  parts  of  an  inch  in  thickness,  I  am  prepared  to 
demonstrate  that  this  Holoptychius  of  the  Lower  Old  Red 
must  have  been  at  least  thrice  the  size  of  the  Holoptychius 
Nobilissimus  of  Clashbennie. 

Still  we  pass  on,  though  with  no  difficulty,  over  the  rough 
contorted  crags,  worn  by  the  suii'  into  deep  ruts  and  un- 
even ridges,  gnarled  protuberances,  and  crater-like  hoi- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    207 

lows.  The  fossiliferous  beds  are  still  very  numerous,  and 
largely  charged  with  remains.  We  see  dermal  bones, 
spines,  scales,  and  jaws,  projecting  in  high  relief  from  the 
sea-worn  surface  of  the  ledges  below,  and  from  the  weather- 
worn faces  of  the  precipices  above  ;  for  an  uneven  wall  of 
crags  some  thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  now  runs  along  the 
shore.  We  have  reached  what  seems  a  large  mole,  that 
sloping  downwards  athwart  the  beach  from  the  precipices, 
like  a  huge  boat-pier,  nans  far  into  the  surf.  We  find  it 
composed  of  a  siliceous  bed,  so  intensely  compact  and  hard, 
that  it  has  preserved  its  proportions  entire,  while  every 
other  rock  has  worn  from  around  it.  For  century  after 
century  have  the  storms  of  the  fierce  north-west  sent  their 
long  ocean-nursed  waves  to  dash  against  it  in  foam  ;  for 

O  O  ' 

century  after  century  have  the  never-ceasing  currents  of 
the  Pentland  chafed  against  its  steep  sides,  or  eddied  over 
its  rough  crest ;  and  yet  still  does  it  remain  unwasted  and 
unworn, — its  abrupt  wall  retaining  all  its  former  steepness, 
and  every  angular  jutting  all  the  original  sharpness  of  edge. 
As  we  advance  the  scenery  becomes  wilder  and  more 
broken :  here  an  irregular  wall  of  rock  projects  from  the 
crags  towards  the  sea ;  there  a  dock-like  hollow,  in  which 
the  water  gleams  green,  intrudes  from  the  sea  upon  the 
crags ;  we  pass  a  deep  lime-encrusted  cave,  with  which 
tradition  associates  some  wild  legends,  and  which,  from  the 
supposed  resemblance  of  the  hanging  stalactites  to  the  en- 
trails of  a  large  animal  wounded  in  the  chase,  bears  the 
name  of  Pudding-Gno  ;  and  then,  turning  an  angle  of  the 
coast,  AVO  enter  a  solitary  bay,  that  presents  at  its  upper 
extremity  a  flat  expanse  of  sand.  Our  walk  is  still  over 
sepulchres  charged  Avith  the  remains  of  the  long-departed. 
Scales  of  Holoptychius  abound,  scattered  like  coin  over  the 
surface  of  the  ledges.  It  Avoujd  seem — to  borroAV  from  Mr. 
Dick  —  as  if  some  old  lord  of  the  treasury,  Avho  flourished 


208  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

in  the  days  of  the  coal-money  currency,  had  taken  a  squan- 
dering fit  at  Sanday  Bay,  and  tossed  the  dingy  contents  of 
his  treasure-chest  by  shovelfuls  upon  the  rocks.  Mr.  Dick 
found  in  this  locality  some  of  his  finest  specimens,  one  of 
which  —  the  inner  side  of  the  skull-cap  of  a  Holoptychius, 
with  every  plate  occupying  its  proper  place,  and  the  large 
angular  holes  through  which  the  eyes  looked  out  still  entire 
— I  trust  to  be  able  by  and  by  to  present  to  the  public  in  a 
good  engraving.  There  occur  jaws,  plates,  scales,  spines,  — 
the  remains  of  fucoids,  too,  of  great  size  and  in  vast  abun- 
dance. Mr.  Dick  has  disinterred  from  among  the  rocks  of 
Sanday  Bay  flattened  carbonaceous  stems  four  inches  in 
diameter.  We  are  still  within  an  hour's  walk  of  Thurso  ; 
but  in  that  bfief  hour  how  many  marvels  have  we  wit- 
nessed !  —  how  vast  an  amount  of  the  vital  mechanisms  of  a 
perished  creation  have  we  not  passed  over  !  Our  walk  has 
been  along  ranges  of  sepulchres,  greatly  more  wonderful 
than  those  of  Thebes  or  Petrrea,  and  mayhap  a  thousand 
times  more  ancient.  There  is  no  lack  of  life  along  the  shores 
of  the  solitary  little  bay.  The  shriek  of  the  sparrow-hawk 
mingles  from  the  cliffs  with  the  hoarse  deep  croak  of  the 
raven ;  the  cormorant  on  some  wave-encircled  ledge,  hangs 

9  O      '  O 

out  his  dark  wing  to  the  breeze ;  the  spotted  diver,  plying 
his  vocation  on  the  shallows  beyond,  dives  and  then  appears, 
and  dives  and  appears  again,  and  we  see  the  silver  glitter 
of  scales  from  his  beak ;  and  far  away  in  the  offing  the 
sunlight  falls  on  a  scull  of  seagulls,  that  flutter  upwards, 
downwards,  and  athwart,  now  in  the  air,  thick  as  midges 
over  some  forest-brook  in  an  evening  of  midsummer. 

But  we  again  pass  onwards,  amid  a  wild  ruinous  scene  of 
abrupt  faults,  detached  fragments  of  rocks,  and  reversed 
strata:  again  the  ledges  assume  their  ordinary  position  and 
aspect,  and  we  rise  from  lower  to  higher  and  still  higher 
beds  in  the  formation,  —  for  such,  as  I  have  already  re- 


A    SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         209 

marked,  is  the  general  arrangement  from  west  to  east, 
alon<j  the  northern  coast  of  Caithness,  of  the  Old  Red  Sand- 

O  * 

stone.  The  great  Conglomerate  base  of  the  formation  we 
find  largely  developed  at  Port  Skerry,  just  where  the  western 
boundary  line  of  the  county  divides  it  from  the  county  of 
Sutherland;  its  thick  upper  coping  of  sandstone  we  see 
forming  the  tall  cliffs  of  Dunnet  Head ;  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  space  between,  nearly  twenty  miles  as  the  crow 
flies,  is  occupied  chiefly  by  the  shales,  grits,  and  flagstones, 
which  we  have  found  charged  so  abundantly  with  the 
strangely-organized  ichthyolites  of  the  second  stage  of  ver- 
tebrate existence.  In  the  twenty  intervening  miles  there 
are  many  breaks  and  faults,  and  so  there  may  be,  of  course, 
recurrences  of  the  same  strata,  and  re-appearances  of  the 
same  beds;  but,  after  making  large  allowance  for  partial 
foldings  and  repetitions,  we  must  regard  the  development 
of  this  formation,  with  which  the  twenty  miles  are  occupied, 
as  truly  enormous.  And  yet  it  is  but  one  of  three  that  occur 
in  a  single  system.  We  reach  the  long  flat  bay  of  Dunnet, 
and  cross  its  waste  of  sands.  The  incoherent  coils  of  the 
sand-worm  lie  thick  on  the  surface ;  and  here  a  swarm  of 
buzzing  flies,  disturbed  by  the  foot,  rises  in  a  cloud  from 
some  tuft  of  tangled  sea-weed ;  and  here  myriads  of  gray 
crustaceous  sand-hoppers  dart  sidelong  in  the  little  pools,  or 
vault  from  the  drier  ridges  a  few  inches  into  the  air.  Were 
the  trilobites  of  the  Silurian  system, — at  one  period,  as  their 
remains  testify,  more  than  .equally  abundant,  —  creatures  of 
similar  habits  ?  We  have  at  length  arrived  at  the  tall  sand- 
stone precipices  of  Dunnet,  with  their  broad  decaying  fronts 
of  red  and  yellow ;  but  in  vain  may  we  ply  hammer  and 
chisel  among  them :  not  a  scale,  not  a  plate,  not  even  the 
stain  of  an  imperfect  fucoid  appears.  We  have  reached  the 
upper  boundary  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  formation,  and  find 
it  bordei-ed  by  a  desert  devoid  of  all  trace  of  life.  Some  of 
18* 


210         THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

the  characteristic  types  of  the  formation  re-appear  in  the 
upper  deposits ;  but  though  there  is  a  reproduction  of  the 
original  works  in  their  more  characteristic  passages,  if  I 
may  so  speak,  many  of  the  readings  are  diverse,  and  the 
editions  are  all  new. 

It  is  one  of  the  circumstances  of  peculiar  interest  with 
which  Geology  at  its  present  stage  is  invested,  that  there  is 
no  man  of  energy  and  observation  who  may  not  rationally 
indulge  in  the  hope  of  extending  its  limits  by  adding  to 
its  facts.  Mr.  Dick,  an  intelligent  tradesman  of  Thurso, 
agreeably  occupies  his  hours  of  leisure,  for  a  few  months,  in 
detaching  from  the  rocks  in  his  neighborhood  their  organic 
remains;  and  thus  succeeds  in  adding  to  the  existing 
knowledge  of  palaeozoic  life,  by  disinterring  ichthyolites 
which  even  Agassiz  himself  would  delight  to  figure  and 
describe.  Several  of  the  specimens  in  my  possession,  which 
I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Dick,  are  so  decidedly  unique, 
that  they  would  be  regarded  as  strangers  in  the  completest 
geological  museums  extant.  It  is  a  not  uncurious  fact,  that 
when  the  Thurso  tradesman  was  pursuing  his  labors  of 
exploration  among  rocks  beside  the  Pentland  Frith,  a  man 
of  similar  character  was  pursuing  exactly  similar  labors,  with 
nearly  similar  results,  among  rocks  of  nearly  the  same  era, 
that  bound,  on  the  coast  of  Cornwall,  the  British  Channel. 
When  the  one  was  hammering  in  "Ready-money  Cove," 
the  other,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  island,  was  disturbing 
the  echoes  of  "  Pudding-Gno ;"  •  and  scales,  plates,  spines, 
and  occipital  fragments  of  palaeozoic  fishes  rewarded  the 
labors  of  both.  In  an  article  on  the  scientific  meeting  at 
York,  which  appeared  in  "  Chambers'  Journal "  in  the 
November  of  last  year,  the  reading  public  were  introduced 
to  a  singularly  meritorious  naturalist,  Mr.  Charles  Peach,*  a 

*  Mr.  Peach  has  discovered  fossils  in  the  Durncss  limestone,  which  rests 
above  the  quartzite  rock  of  the  west  of  Scotland,  that  covers  the  Red 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE  AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         211 

private  in  the  mounted  guard  (preventive  service),  stationed 
on  the  southern  coast  of  Cornwall,  who  has  made  several 
interesting  discoveries  on  the  outer  confines  of  the  animal 
kingdom,  that  have  added  considerably  to  the  list  of  our 
British  zoophites  and  echinodermata.  The  article,  a  finely- 
toned  one,  redolent  of  that  pleasing  sympathy  which  Mr. 
Robert  Chambers  has  ever  evinced  with  struggling  merit, 
referred  chiefly  to  Mr.  Peach's  labors  as  a  naturalist ;  but 
he  is  also  well  known  in  the  geological  field. 

Sandstone  long  believed  to  be  OLD  RED.  The  fossils  are  very  obscure. — 
W.  S.  S. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Ichthyolite  Beds  of  Clime  and  Lethenbarn  —  Limestone  Quarry  —  Destruction 
of  Urns  and  Sarcophagi  in  the  Lime-kiln  —Nodules  opened —  Beautiful  color- 
ing of  the  Remains  —  Patrick  Duff's  Description  —  New  Genus  of  Moray- 
shire  Ichthyolite  described  —  Form  and  size  of  the  Nodules  or  Stone  Coffins  — 
Illustration  from  Mrs.  Marshall's  Cements  —  Forest  of  Darnaway  —  The 
Hill  of  Berries  —  Sluie  —  Elgin  —  Outliers  of  the  Weald  and  the  Oolite  —  De- 
scription of  the  Weald  at  Linksfield  —  Mr.  Duff's  Lepidotus  minor  —  Eccentric 
Types  of  Fish  Scales  —  Visit  to  the  Sandstones  of  Scat-Craig  —  Fine  suit  of 
Fossils  at  Scat-Craig — True  graveyard  Bones,  not  mere  Impressions  —  Va- 
rieties of  pattern — The  Diker's  "Carved  Flowers "—  Stagonolepis,  a  new 
genus  —  Termination  of  the  Ramble. 

MY  term  of  furlough  was  fast  drawing  to  a  close.  It  was 
now  Wednesday  the  14th  August,  and  on  Monday  the  19th 
it  behooved  me  to  be  seated  at  my  desk  in  Edinburgh.  I 
took  boat,  and  crossed  the  Moray  Frith  from  Crornarty  to 
Nairn,  and  then  walked  on,  in  a  veiy  hot  sun,  over  Shaks- 
peare's  Moor  to  Boghole,  with  the  intention  of  examining 
the  ichthyolite  beds  of  Clune  and  Lethenbarn,  and  after- 
wards striking  across  the  country  to  Forres,  through  the 
forest  of  Darnaway,  where  the  forest  abuts  on  the  Findhorn, 
at  the  picturesque  village  of  Sluie.  When  I  had  last  crossed 
the  moor,  exactly  ten  years  before,  it  was  in  a  tremendous 
storm  of  rain  and  wind ;  and  the  dark  platform  of  heath 
and  bog,  with  its  old  ruinous  castle  standing  sentry  over  it, 
seemed  greatly  more  worthy  of  the  genius  of  the  dramatist, 
as  cloud  after  cloud  dashed  over  it,  like  ocean  waves  break- 
ing on  some  low  volcanic  island,  than  it  did  on  this  clear, 
breathless  afternoon,  in  the  unclouded  sunshine.  But  the 
sublimity  of  the  moor  on  which  Macbeth  met  the  witches 
depends  in  no  degree  on  that  of  the  "heath  near  Forres," 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          213 

whether  seen  in  foul  weather  or  fair ;  its  topography  bears 
relation  to  but  the  mind  of  Shakspeare ;  and  neither  tile- 
draining  nor  the  plough  will  ever  lessen  an  inch  of  its  area. 
The  limestone  quarry  of  Chine  has  been  opened  on  the 
edge  of  an  extensive  moor,  about  three  miles  from  the 
public  road,  where  the  province  of  Moray  sweeps  upAvards 
from  the  broad  fertile  belt  of  corn-land  that  borders  on  the 
sea,  to  the  brown  and  shaggy  interior.  There  is  an  old- 
fashioned  bare-looking  farm-house  on  the  one  side,  sur- 
rounded by  a  few  uninclosed  patches  of  corn;  and  the 
moorland,  here  dark  with  heath,  there  gray  with  lichens, 
stretches  away  on  the  other.  The  quarry  itself  is  merely 
a  piece  of  moor  that  has  been  trenched  to  the  depth  of 
some  five  or  six  feet  from  the  surface,  and  that  presents,  at 
the  line  where  the  broken  ground  leans  against  the  ground 
still  unbroken,  a  low  uneven  frontage,  somewhat  resembling 
that  of  a  ruinous  stone-fence.  It  has  been  opened  in  the 
outcrop  of  an  ichthyolite  bed  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone, on  which  in  this  locality  the  thin  moory  soil  imme- 
diately rests,  without  the  intervention  of  the  common 
boulder  clay  of  the  country;  and  the  fish-enveloping 
nodules,  which  are  composed  in  this  bed  of  a  rich  lime- 
stone, have  been  burnt,  for  a  considerable  number  of  years, 
for  the  purposes  of  the  agriculturist  and  builder.  There 
was  a  kiln  smoking  this  evening  beside  the  quarry ;  and  a 
few  laborers  were  engaged  with  shovel  and  pickaxe  in 
cutting  into  the  stratified  clay  of  the  unbroken  ground, 
and  throwing  up  its  spindle-shaped  nodules  on  the  bank, 
as  materials  for  their  next  burning.  Antiquaries  have 
often  regretted  that  the  sculptured  marble  of  Greece  and 
Egypt,  • —  classic  urns,  to  whose  keeping  the  ashes  of  the 
dead  had  been  consigned,  and  antique  sarcophagi,  rough- 
ened with  hieroglyphics,  —  should  have  been  so  often  con- 
demned to  the  lime-kiln  by  the  illiterate  Copt  or  tasteless 


214  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

Mohammedan ;  and  I  could  not  help  experiencing  a  some- 
what similar  feeling  here.  The  urns  and  sarcophagi,  many 
times  more  ancient  than  those  of  Greece  and  Egypt,  and 
that  told%still  more  wondrous  stories,  lay  thickly  ranged  in 
this  strange  catacomb,  —  so  thickly,  that  there  were  quite 
enough  for  the  lime-kiln  and  the  geologists  too;  but  I 
found  the  kiln  got  all,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the  collector 
finds  scarce  any  fossils  more  difficult  to  procure  than  those 
of  the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone.  I  asked  one  of  the 
laborers  whether  he  did  not  preserve  some  of  the  better 
specimens,  in  the  hope  of  finding  an  occasional  purchaser. 
Xot  now,  he  said :  he  used  to  preserve  them  in  the  days 
of  Lady  Gumming  of  Altyre;  but  since  her  ladyship's 
death,  no  one  in  the  neighborhood  seemed  to  care  for  them, 
and  strangers  rarely  came  the  way. 

The  first  nodule  I  laid  open  contained  a  tolerably  well- 
preserved  Cheiracanthus ;  the  second,  an  indifferent  speci- 
men of  Glyptolepis ;  and  three  others,  in  succession,  remains 
of  Coccosteus.  Almost  every  nodule  of  one  especial  layer 
near  the  top  incloses  its  organism.  The  coloring  is  fre- 
quently of  great  beauty.  In  the  Cromarty,  as  in  the  Caith- 
ness, Orkney,  and  Gamrie  specimens,  the  animal  matter 
with  which  the  bones  were  originally  charged  has  been 
converted  into  a  dark  glossy  bitumen,  and  the  plates  and 
scales  glitter  from  a  ground  of  opaque  gray,  like  pieces  of 
jap_an-work  suspended  against  a  rough-cast  wall.  But  here, 
as  in  the  other  Morayshire  deposits,  the  plates  and  scales 
exist  in  nearly  their  original  condition,  as  bone  that  retains 
its  white  color  in  the  centre  of  the  specimens,  where  its 
bulk  is  greatest,  and  is  often  beautifully  tinged  at  its  thin- 
ner edges  by  the  iron  with  which  the  stone  is  impregnated. 
It  is  not  rare  to  find  some  of  the  better  preserved  fossils 
colored  in  a  style  that  reminds  one  of  the  more  gaudy 
fishes  of  the  tropics.  We  see  the  body  of  the  ichthyolite, 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         215 

with  its  finely  arranged  scales,  of  a  pure  snow-white. 
Along  the  edges,  where  the  original  substance  of  the  Lone, 
combining  with  the  oxide  of  the  matrix,  has  formed  a 
phosphate  of  iron,  there  runs  a  delicately  shaded  band  of 
plum-blue ;  while  the  out-spread  fins,  charged  still  more 
largely  with  the  oxide,  are  of  a  deep  red.  The  description 
of  Mr.  Patrick  Duff,  in  his  "  Geology  of  Moray,"  so  redo- 
lent of  the  quiet  enthusiasm  of  the  true  fossil-hunter, 
especially  applies  to  the  ichthyolites  of  this  quarry,  and  to 
those  of  a  neighboring  opening  in  the  same  bed,  —  the 
quarry  of  Lethenbarn.  "  The  nodules,"  says  Mr.  Duff, 
"  which  in  their  external  shape  resemble  the  stones  used 
in  the  game  of  curling,  but  are  elliptical  bodies  instead  of 
round,  lie  in  the  shale  on  their  fiat  sides,  in  a  line  with  the 
dip.  When  taken  out,  they  remind  one  of  water-worn 
pebbles,  or  rather  boulders  of  a  shore.  A  smart  blow  on 
the  edge  splits  them  along  on  the  major  axis,  and  exposes 
the  interesting  inclosure.  The  practised  geologist  knows 
well  the  thrilling  interest  attending  the  breaking  up  of  the 
nodule :  the  uninitiated  cannot  sympathize  with  it.  There 
is  no  time  when  a  fossil  looks  so  well  as  when  first  exposed. 
There  is  a  clammy  moisture  on  the  surface  of  the  scales  or 
plates,  which  brings  out  the  beautiful  coloring,  and  adds 
brilliancy  to  the  enamel.  Exposure  to  the  weather  soon 
dims  the  lustre ;  and  even  in  a  cabinet  an  old  specimen  is 
easily  known  by  its  tarnished  aspect." 

I  found  at  Clune  no  ichthyolite  to  which  the  geologists 
have  not  been  already  introduced,  or  with  which  I  had  not 
been  acquainted  previously  in  the  Cromarty  beds.  The 
Lower  Old  Red  of  Morayshire  furnishes,  however,  at  least 
one  genus  not  yet  figured  nor  described,  and  of  which,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  only  a  single  specimen  has  yet  been 
found.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  small  delicately-formed 
fish;  its  head  covered  with  plates;  its  body  with  round 


216  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

scales  of  a  size  intermediate  between  those  of  the  Osteolepis 
and  Cheiracanthus ;  its  anterior  dorsal  fin  placed,  as  in  the 
Dipterus,  Diplopterus,  and  Glyptolepis,  directly  opposite  to 
its  ventral  fins ;  the  enamelled  surfaces  of  the  minute  scales 
were  fretted  with  microscopic  undulating  ridges,  that  ra- 
diated from  the  centre  to  the  circumference ;  similar  furrows 
traversed  the  occipital  plates;  and  the  fins,  unfurnished 
with  spines,  were  formed,  as  in  the  Dipterus  and  Diplop- 
terus, of  thick-set,  enamelled  rays.  The  posterior  fins  and 
tail  of  the  creature  were  not  preserved.  I  may  mention, 
for  the  satisfaction  of  the  geologist,  that  I  saw  this  unique 
fossil  in  the  possession  of  the  late  Lady  Cumming  of  Altyre, 
a  few  weeks  previous  to  the  lamented  death  of  her  ladyship ; 
and  that,  on  assuring  her  it  was  as  new  in  relation  to  the 
Cromarty  and  Caithness  fish-beds  as  to  those  of  Moray,  she 
intimated  an  intention  of  forthwith  sending  a  drawing  of  it 
to  Agassiz;  but  her  untimely  decease  in  all  probability 
interfered  with  the  design,  and  I  have  not  since  heard  of 
this  new  genus  of  ichthyolite,  or  of  her  ladyship's  inter- 
esting specimen,  hitherto  apparently  its  only  representative 
and  memorial.  In  the  Morayshire,  as  in  the  Cromarty  beds, 
the  limestone  nodules  take  very  generally  the  form  of  the 
fish  which  they  inclose:  they  are  stone  coffins,  carefully 
moulded  to  express  the  outline  of  the  corpses  within.  Is 
the  fish  entire  ?  —  the  nodule  is  of  a  spindle  form,  broader 
at  the  head  and  narrower  at  the  tail.  Is  it  slightly  curved, 
in  the  attitude  of  violent  death?  —  the  nodule  has  also  its 
slight  curve.  Is  it  bent  round,  so  that  the  extremities  of 
the  creature  meet  ?  —  the  nodule,  in  conformity  with  the 
outline,  is  circular.  Is  it  disjointed  and  broken?  —  the 
nodule  is  correspondingly  irregular.  In  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  the  inclosing  coffin,  like  that  of  an  old  mummy,  con- 
forms to  the  outline  of  the  organism  which  it  incloses.  It 
is  further  worthy  of  remark,  too,  that  a  large  fish  forms 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE    AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.         217 

generally  a  large  nodule,  and  a  small  fish  a  small  one. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  a  nodule  fifteen  inches  in  length,  here 
a  nodule  of  only  three  inches,  and  here  a  nodule  of  inter- 
mediate size,  that  measures  eight  inches.  We  find  that  the 
large  nodule  contains  a  Cheirolepis  thirteen  inches  in  length, 
the  small  one  a  Diplacanthus  of  but  two  and  a  half  inches  in 
length,  and  the  intermediate  one  a  Cheiracanthus  of  seven 
inches.  The  size  of  the  fish  evidently  regulated  that  of  the 
nodule.  The  coffin  is  generally  as  good  a  fit  in  size  as  in 
form ;  and  the  bulk  of  the  nodule  bears  almost  always  a 
definite  proportion  to  the  amount  of  animal  matter  round 
which  it  had  formed.  I  was  a  good  deal  struck,  a  few 
weeks  ago,  in  glancing  over  a  series  of  experiments  con- 
ducted for  a  different  purpose  by  a  lady  of  singular  inge- 
nuity,—  Mrs.  Marshall,  the  inventor  and  patentee  of  the 
beautiful  marble-looking  plaster,  Tntonacco,  —  to  find  what 
seemed  a  similar  principle  illustrated  in  the  compositions  of 
her  various  cements.  These  are  all  formed  of  a  basis  of 
lime,  mixed  in  certain  proportions  with  organic  matter. 
The  reader  must  be  familiar  with  cements  of  this  kind  long 
known  among  the  people,  and  much  used  in  the  repairing 
of  broken  pottery,  such  as  a  cement  compounded  of  quick- 
lime made  of  oyster  shells,  mixed  up  with  a  glue  made  of 
skim-milk  cheese,  and  another  cement  made  also  of  quick- 
lime mixed  up  with  the  whites  of  eggs.  In  Mrs.  Marshall's 
cements,  the  organic  matter  is  variously  compounded  of 
both  animal  and  vegetable  substances,  while  the  earth  gen- 
erally employed  is  sulphate  of  lime ;  and  the  result  is  a 
close-grained  marble-like  composition,  considerably  harder 
than  the  sulphate  in  its  original  crystalline  state.  She  had 
deposited,  in  one  set  of  her  experiments,  the  calcareous 
earth,  mixed  up  with  sand,  clay,  and  other  extraneous  mat- 
ters, on  some  of  the  commoner  molluscs  of  our  shores ;  and 
universally  found  that  the  mass,  incoherent  everywhere  else, 

19 


218  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

had  acquired  solidity  wherever  it  had  been  permeated  by 
the  animal  matter  of  the  molluscs.  Each  animal,  in  pro- 
portion to  its  size,  is  found  to  retain,  as  in  the  fossiliferous 
spindles  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  its  coherent  nodule 
around  it.  One  point  in  the  natural  phenomenon,  however, 
still  remains  unillustrated  by  the  experiments  of  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall. We  see  in  them  the  animal  matter  giving  solidity  to 
the  lime  in  immediate  contact  with  it ;  but  we  do  not  see  it 
possessing  any  such  affinity  for  it  as  to  form,  in  an  argilla- 
ceous compound,  like  that  of  the  ichthyolite  beds,  a  centre 
of  attraction  powerful  enough  to  draw  together  the  lime 
diffused  throughout  the  mass.  It  still  remains  for  the 
geologic  chemist  to  discover  on  what  principle  masses  of 
animal  matter  should  form  the  attracting  nuclei  of  limestone 
nodules. 

The  declining  sun  warned  me  that  I  had  lingered  rather 
longer  than  was  prudent  among  the  ichthyolites  of  Clune ; 
and  so,  striking  in  an  eastern  direction  across  a  flat  moor, 
through  which  I  found  the  schistose  gneiss  of  the  district 
protruding  in  masses  resembling  half-buried  boulders,  I 
entered  the  forest  of  Darnaway.  There  was  no  path,  and 
much  underwood,  and  I  enjoyed  the  luxury  of  steering  my 
course,  out  of  sight  of  road  and  landmark,  by  the  sun,  and 
of  being  not  sure  at  times  whether  I  had  skill  enough  to 
play  the  part  of  the  bush-ranger  under  his  guidance.  A 
sultry  day  had  clarified  and  cooled  down  into  a  clear,  balmy 
evening ;  the  slant  beam  was  falling  red  on  a  thousand  tall 
trunks,  —  here  gleaming  along  some  bosky  vista,  to  which 
the  white  silky  wood-moths,  fluttering  by  scores,  and  the 
midge  and  the  mosquito  dancing  by  myriads,  imparted  a 
motty  gold-dust  atmosphere;  there  penetrating  in  strag- 
gling rays  far  into  some  gloomy  recess,  and  resting  in  patches 
of  flame,  amid  the  darkness,  on  gnarled  stem,  or  moss- 
cushioned  stump,  or  gray  beard-like  lichen.  I  dislodged,  in 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE  HEBRIDES.          219 

passing  through  the  underwood,  many  a  tiny  tenant  of  the 
forest,  that  had  a  better  right  to  harbor  among  its  wild 
raspberries  and  junipers  than  I  had  to  disturb  them, — 
velvety  night-moths,  that  had  sat  with  folded  wings  under 
the  leaves,  awaiting  the  twilight,  and  that  now  took  short 
blind  flights  of  some  two  or  three  yards,  to  get  out  of  my 
way,  —  and  robust,  well-conditioned  spiders,  whose  elastic, 
well-tightened  lines  snapped  sharp  before  me  as  I  pressed  , 
through,  and  then  curled  up  on  the  scarce  perceptible 
breeze,  like  broken  strands  of  wool.  But  every  man,  how_ 
ever  Whiggish  in  his  inclinations,  entertains  a  secret  res- 
pect for  the  powerful ;  and  though  I  passed  within  a  few 
feet  of  a  large  wasps'  nest,  suspended  to  a  jutting  bough  of 
furze,  the  wasps  I  took  especial  care  not  to  disturb.  I 
pressed  on,  first  through  a  broad  belt  of  the  forest,  occupied 
mainly  by  melancholy  Scotch  firs ;  next  through  an  opening, 
in  which  I  found  an  American-looking  village  of  mingled 
cottages, gardens, fields  and  wood;  and  then  through  another 
broad  forest-belt,  in  which  the  ground  is  more  varied  with 
height  and  hollow  than  in  the  first,  and  in  which  I  found 
only  forest  trees,  mostly  oaks  and  beeches.  I  heard  the 
roar  of  the  Findhorn  before  me,  and  premised  I  was  soon 
to  reach  the  river ;  but  whether  I  should  pursue  it  upwards 
or  downwards,  in  order  to  find  the  ferry  at  Sluie,  was  more 
than  I  knew.  There  lay  in  my  track  a  beautiful  hillock, 
that  reclines  on  the  one  side  to  the  setting  sun,  and  sinks 
sheer  on  the  other,  in  a  mural  sandstone  precipice,  into  the 
Findhom.  The  trees  open  over  it,  giving  full  access  to 
the  free  air  and  the  sunshine ;  and  I  found  it  as  thickly 
studded  over  with  berries  as  if  it  had  been  the  special  care 
of  half  a  dozen  gardeners.  The  red  light  fell  yet  redder 
on  the  thickly  inlaid  cranberries  and  stone-brambles  of  the 
slope,  and  here  and  there,  though  so  late  in  the  season,  on 
a  patch  of  wild  strawberries ;  while  over  all,  dark,  delicate 


220  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

blueberries,  with  their  flour-bedusted  coats,  were  studded 
as  profusely  as  if  they  had  been  peppered  over  it  by  a  hail- 
stone cloud.  I  have  seldom  seen  such  a  school-boy's 
paradise,  and  I  was  just  thinking  what  a  rare  discovery  I 
would  have  deemed  it  had  I  made  it  thirty  years  sooner, 
when  I  heard  a  whooping  in  the  wood,  and  four  little  girls, 
the  eldest  scarcely  eleven,  came  bounding  up  to  the  hillock, 
their  lips  and  fingers  already  dyed  purple,  and  dropped 
themselves  down  among  the  berries  with  a  shout.  They 
were  sadly  startled  to  find  they  had  got  a  companion  in  so 
solitary  a  recess ;  but  I  succeeded  in  convincing  them  that 
they  were  in  no  manner  of  danger  from  him;  and  on 
asking  whether  there  was  any  of  them  skilful  enough  to 
show  me  the  way  to  Sluie,  they  told  me  they  all  lived 
there,  and  were  on  their  way  home  from  school,  which  they 
attended  at  the  village  in  the  forest.  Hours  had  elapsed 
since  the  master  had  let  them  go,  but  in  so  fine  an  evening 
the  berries  would  n't,  and  so  they  were  still  in  the  wood. 
I  accompanied  them  to  Sluie,  and  was  ferried  over  the 
river  in  a  salmon  coble.  There  is  no  point  where  the 
Findhorn,  celebrated  among  our  Scotch  streams  for  the 
beauty  of  its  scenery,  is  so  generally  interesting  as  in  the 
neighborhood  of  this  village ;  forest  and  river,  —  each  a 
paragon  in  its  kind,  —  uniting  for  several  miles  together 
what  is  most  choice  and  characteristic  in  the  peculiar 
features  of  both.  In  no  locality  is  the  surface  of  the  great 
forest  of  Darnaway  more  undulated,  or  its  trees  nobler ; 
and  nowhere  does  the  river  present  a  livelier  succession  of 
eddying  pools  and  rippling  shallows,  or  fret  itself  in  sweep- 
ing on  its  zig-zag  course,  now  to  the  one  bank,  now  to  the 
other,  against  a  more  picturesque  and  imposing  series  of 
cliffs.  But  to  the  geologist  the  locality  possesses  an 
interest  peculiar  to  itself.  The  .precipices  on  both  sides 
are  charged  with  fossils  of  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstone : 


A   SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          221 

they  form  part  of  a  vast  indurated  grave-yard,  excavated 
to  the  depth  of  an  hundred  feet  by  the  ceaseless  wear  of 
the  stream ;  and  when  the  waters  are  low,  the  teeth-plates 
and  scales  of  ichthyolites,  all  of  them  specifically  different 
from  those  of  Clune  and  Lethenbarn,  and  most  of  them 
generically  so,  may  be  disinterred  from  the  strata  in  hand- 
fuls.  But  the  closing  evening  left  me  neither  light  nor 
time  for  the  work  of  exploration.  I  heard  the  curfew  in 
the  woods  from  the  yet  distant  town,  and  dark  night  had 
set  in  long  ere  I  reached  Forres.  On  the  following  morn- 
ing I  took  a  seat  in  one  of  the  south  coaches,  and  got  on  to 
Elgin  an  hour  before  noon. 

Elgin,  one  of  the  finest  of  our  northern  towns,  occupies 
the  centre  of  a  richly  fossiliferous  district,  which  wants 
only  better  sections  to  rank  it  among  the  most  interesting 
in  the  kingdom.  An  undulating  platform  of  Old  Red 
Sandstone,  in  which  we  see,  largely  developed  in  one 
locality,  the  lower  formation  of  the  Coccosteus,  and  in 
another,  still  more  largely,  the  upper  formation  of  the 
Holoptycliius  Nobilissimus,  forms,  if  I  may  so  -speak,  the 
foundation  deposit  of  the  district,  —  the  true  geologic 
plane  of  the  country ;  and,  thickly  scattered  over  this 
plane,  we  find  numerous  detached  knolls  and  patches  of 
the  Weald  and  the  Oolite,  deposited  like  heaps  of  travel- 
led soil,  or  of  lime  shot  down  by  the  agriculturist  on  the 
surface  of  a  field.  The  Old  Red  platform  is  mottled  by 
the  outliers  of  a  comparatively  modern  time :  the  sepul- 
chral mounds  of  later  races,  that  lived  and  died  during  the 

'  O 

reptile  age  of  the  world,  repose  on  the  surface  of  an 
ancient  bury  ing-ground,  charged  with  remains  of  the  long 
anterior  age  of  the  fish ;  and  over  all,  as  a  general  cover- 
ing, rest  the  red  boulder-clay  and  the  vegetable  mould. 
Mr.  Duff,  in  his  valuable  "  Sketch  of  the  Geology  of  Mo- 
ray," enumerates  five  several  localities  in  the  neighbor- 
19* 


222  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY  ;    OR, 

hood  of  Elgin  in  which  there  occur  outliers  of  the  Weald ; 
though,  of  course,  in  a  country  so  flat,  and  in  which  the 
diluvium  lies  deep,  we  cannot  hold  that  all  have  been  dis- 
covered. And  though  the  outliers  of  the  Oolite  have  not 
yet  been  ascertained  to  be  equally  numerous,  they  seem 
of  greater  extent;  the  isolated  masses  detached  from  them 
by  the  denuding  agencies  lie  thick  over  extensive  areas ; 
and  in  working  out  the  course  of  improvement  which  has 
already  rendered  Elginshire  the  garden  of  the  north,  the 
ditcher  at  one  time  touches  on  some  bed  of  shale  charged 
with  the  characteristic  Ammonites  and  Belemnites  of  the 
cystem,  and  at  another  on  some  calcareous  sandstone  bed, 
abounding  Avith  its  Pectens,  its  Plagiostoma,  and  its  Pin- 
na3.  Some  of  these  outliers,  whether  "VVealden  or  Oolitic, 
are  externally  of  great  beauty.  They  occur  in  the  parish 
of  Lhanbryde,  about  three  miles  to  the  east  of  Elgin,  in 
the  form  of  green  pyramidal  hillocks,  mottled  with  trees, 
and  at  Linksfield,  as  a  confluent  group  of  swelling  grassy 
mounds.  And  from  their  insulated  character,  and  the 
abundance  of  organisms  which  they  inclose,  they  serve  to 
remind  one  of  those  green  pyramids  of  Central  America  in 
which  the  traveller  finds  deposited  the  skeleton  remains 
of  extinct  races.  It  has  been  suggested  by  Mr.  Duff,  in 
his  "Sketch,"  —  a  suggestion  which  the  late  Sutherland- 
shire  discoveries  of  Mr.  Robertson  of  Inverugie  have 
tended  to  confirm,  —  that  the  Oolite  and  Weald  of  Moray 
do  not,  in  all  probability,  represent  consecutive  forma- 
tions :  they  seem  to  bear  the  same  sort  of  relation  to  each 
other  as  that  mutually  borne  by  the  Mountain  Limestone 
and  the  Coal  Measures.  The  one,  of  lacustrine  or  of  estu- 
ary origin,  exhibits  chiefly  the  productions  of  the  land  and 
its  fresh  waters;  the  other,  as  decidedly  of  marine  origin, 
is  charged  with  the  remains  of  animals  whose  proper  home 
was  the  sea.  But  the  productions,  though  dissimilar,  were 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          223 

in  all  probability  contemporary,  just  as  the  crabs  and  peri- 
winkles of  the  Frith  of  Forth  are  contemporary  with  the 
frogs  and  lymnea  of  Flanders  moss. 

I  had  little  time  for  exploration  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Elgin ;  but  that  little,  through  the  kindness  of  my  friend 
Mr.  Duff,  I  was  enabled  to  economize.  We  first  visited 
together  the  outlier  of  the  Weald  at  Linksfield.  It  may 
be  found  rising  in  the  landscape,  a  short  mile  below  the 
town,  in  the  form  of  a  green  undulating  hillock,  half  cut 
through  by  a  limestone  quarry ;  and  the  section  thus  fur- 
nished is  of  great  beauty.  The  basis  on  which  the  hillock 
rests  is  formed  of  the  well-marked  calcareous  band  in  the 
Upper  Old  Red,  known  as  the  Comstone,  which  we  find 
occurring  here,  as  elsewhere,  as  a  pale  concretionary  lime- 
stone of  considerable  richness,  though  in  some  patches 
largely  mixed  with  a  green  argillaceous  earth,  and  in 
others  passing  into  a  siliceous  chert.  Over  the  pale-col- 
ored base,  the  section  of  the  hillock  is  ribbed  like  an  onyx : 
for  about  forty  feet,  bands  of  gray,  green,  and  blue  clays 
alternate  with  bands  of  cream-colored,  light-green,  and 
dark-blue  limestones ;  and  over  all  there  rests  a  band  of 
the  red  boulder-clay,  capped  by  a  thin  layer  of  vegetable 
mould.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  well  fitted  to  impress 
on  the  geologist  the  necessity  of  cautious  induction,  that 
the  boulder-clay  not  only  overlies,  but  also  underlies,  this 
fresh-water  deposit ;  a  bed  of  unequivocally  the  same  ori- 
gin and  character  with  that  at  the  top  lying  intercalated, 
as  if  filling  up  two  low  flat  vaults,  between  the  upper  sur- 
face of  the  Cornstone  and  the  lower  band  of  the  Weald. 
It  would,  however,  be  as  unsafe  to  infer  that  this  interven- 
ing bed  is  older  than  the  overlying  ones,  as  to  infer  that 
the  rubbish  which  chokes  up  the  vaulted  dungeon  of  an 
old  castle  is  more  ancient  than  the  arch  that  stretches 
over  it.  However  introduced  into  the  cavity  which  it 


224  THE   CRUISE   OP  THE  BETSEY;    OR, 

occupies,  —  whether  by  land-springs  or  otherwise,  —  we 
find  it  containing  fragments  of  the  green  and  pale  lime- 
stones that  lie  above,  just  as  the  rubbish  of  the  castle  dun- 
geon might  be  found  to  contain  fragments  of  the  castle 
itself.  When  the  bed  of  red  boulder-clay  was  intercalated, 
the  rocks  of  the  overlying  Wealden  were  exactly  the  same 
sort  of  indurated  substances  that  they  are  now,  and  were 
yielding  to  the  operations  of  some  denuding  agent.  The 
alternating  clays  and  limestones  of  this  outlier,  each  of 
which  must  have  been  in  turn  an  upper  layer  at  the  bot- 
tom, of  some  lake  or  estuary,  are  abundantly  fossiliferous. 
In  some  the  fresh-water  character  of  the  deposit  is  well 
marked:  Cyprides  are  so  exceedingly  numerous  in  some 
of  the  bands,  that  they  impart  to  the  stone  an  Oolitic 
appearance ;  while  others  of  a  dark-colored  limestone  we 
see  strewed  over,  like  the  oozy  bottom  of  a  modern  lake, 
with  specimens  of  what  seem  Paludina,  Cyclas,  and  Pla- 
norbus.  Some  of  the  other  shells  are  more  equivocal :  a 
Mytilus  or  Modiola,  which  abounds  in  some  of  the  bands, 
may  have  been  either  a  sea  or  a  fresh-water  shell ;  and  a 
small  oyster  and  Astarte  seem  decidedly  marine.  Remains 
of  fish  are  very  abundant,  —  scales,  plates,  teeth,  ichthyo- 
dorulites,  and  in  some  instances  entire  ichthyolites.  I 
saw,  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Duff,  a  small  but  very  entire 
specimen  of  Lepidotus  minor,  with  the  fins  spread  out  on 
the  limestone,  as  in  an  anatomical  preparation,  and  almost 
every  plate  and  scale  in  its  place.  Some  of  his  specimens 
of  ichthyodorulites,  too,  are  exceedingly  beautiful,  and  of 
great  size,  resembling  jaws  thickly  set  with  teeth,  the 
apparent  teeth  being  mere  knobs  ranged  along  the  con- 
cave edge  of  the  bone,  the  surface  of  which  we  see  grace- 
fully fluted  and  enamelled.  What  most  struck  me,  how- 
ever, in  glancing  over  the  drawers  of  Mr.  Duff,  was  the 
character  of  the  Ganoid  scales  of  this  deposit.  The 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    225 

Ganoid  order  in  the  days  of  the  Weald  was  growing  old ; 
and  two  new  orders,  —  the  Ctenoid  and  Cycloid,  —  were 
on  the  eve  of  taking  its  place  in  creation.  Hitherto  it  had 
comprised  at  least  two-thirds  of  all  the  fish  that  had 
existed  ever  since  the  period  in  which  fish  fii-st  began; 
and  almost  every  Ganoid  fish  had  its  own  peculiar  pat- 
tern of  scale.  But  it  would'now  seem  as  if  well  nigh  all 
the  simpler  patterns  were  exhausted,  and  as  if,  in  order  to 
give  the  variety  which  nature  loves,  forms  of  the  most 
eccentric  types  had  to  be  resorted  to.  With  scarce  any 
exception  save  that  furnished  by  the  scales  of  the  Lepido- 
tus  minor,  which  are  plain  lozenge-shaped  plates,  thickly 
japanned,  the  forms  are  strangely  complex  and  irregular, 
easily  expressible  by  the  pencil,  but  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  pen.  The  remains  of  reptiles  have  been  found  occa- 
sionally, though  rarely,  in  this  outlier  of  the  Weald,  —  the 
vertebra  of  a  Plesiosaurus,  the  femur  of  some  Chelonian 
reptile,  and  a  large  fluted  tooth,  supposed  Saurian. 

I  would  fain  have  visited  some  of  the  neighboring  out- 
liers of  the  Oolite,  but  time  did  not  permit.  Mr.  Duff's 
collection,  however,  enabled  me  to  form  a  tolerably  ade- 
quate estimate  of  their  organic  contents.  Viewed  in  the 
group,  these  present  nearly  the  same  aspect  as  the  organisms 
of  the  Upper  Lias  of  Pabba.  There  is  in  the  same  abund- 
ance large  Pinna?,  and  well-relieved  Pectens,  both  ribbed 
and  smooth ;  the  same  abundance,  too,  of  Belemnites  and 
Ammonites  of  resembling  type.  Both  the  Moray  outliers 
and  the  Pabba  deposit  have  their  Terebratulae,  Gervilliae, 
Plagiostoma,  Cardiada?,  their  bright  Ganoid  scales,  and 
their  imperfectly-preserved  lignites.  They  belong  appa- 
rently to  nearly  the  same  period,  and  must  have  been 
formed  in  nearly  similar  circumstances,  —  the  one  on  the 
western,  the  other  on  the  eastern  coast  of  a  country  then 
covered  by  the  vegetation  of  the  Oolite,  and  now  known, 


226  THE   CRUISE    OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

with  reference  to  an  antiquity  of  but  yesterday,  as  the 
ancient  kingdom  of  Scotland.  I  saw  among  the  Ammon- 
ites of  these  outliers  at  least  one  species,  which,  I  believe, 
has  not  yet  been  found  elsewhere,  and  which  has  been 
named,  after  Mr.  Robertson  of  Inverugie,  the  gentleman 
who  first  discovered  it,  Ammonites  HobertsonL  Like  most 
of  the  genus  to  which  it  belongs,  it  is  an  exceedingly  beuu- 
ful  shell,  with  all  its  whorls  free  and  gracefully  ribbed,  and 
bearing  on  its  back,  as  its  distinguishing  specific  peculiarity, 
a  triple  keel.  I  spent  the  evening  of  this  day  in  visiting, 
with  Mr.  Duff,  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstones  of  Scat- 
Craig.  In  Elginshire,  as  in  Fife  and  elsewhere,  the  Upper 
Old  Red  consists  of  three  grand  divisions,  —  a  superior 
bed  of  pale  yellow  sandstone,  which  furnishes  the  finest 
building-stone  anywhere  found  in  the  north  of  Scotland, — 
an  intermediate  calcareous  bed,  known  technically  as  the 
Cornstone,  —  and  an  inferior  bed  of  sandstone,  chiefly,  in 
this  locality,  of  a  grayish -red  color,  and  generally  veiy 
incoherent  in  its  structure.  The  three  beds,  as  shown  by 
the  fossil  contents  of  the  yellow  sandstones  above,  and  of 
the  grayish-red  sandstones  below,  are  members  of  the  same 
formation,  —  a  formation  which,  in  Scotland  at  least,  does 
not  possess  an  organism  in  common  with  the  Middle  Old 
Red  formation ;  that  of  the  Cephalaspis,  as  developed  in 
Forfarshire,  Stirling,  and  Ayr,  or  the  Lower  Old  Red  for- 
mation ;  that  of  the  Coccosteus,  as  developed  in  Caithness, 
Cromarty,  Inverness,  and  Banff  shires,  and  in  so  many  dif- 
ferent localities  in  Moray.  The  Sandstones  at  Scat-Craig 
belong  to  the  grayish-red  base  of  the  Upper  Old  Red 
formation.  They  lie  about  five  miles  south  of  Elgin,  not 
far  distant  from  where  the  paleozoic  deposits  of  the  coast- 
side  lean  against  the  great  primary  nucleus  of  the  interior. 
\Ve  pass  from  the  town,  through  deep  rich  fields,  carefully 
cultivated  and  well  inclosed :  the  country,  as  we  advance 


A    SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         227 

on  the  moorlands,  becomes  more  open;  the  homely  cottage 
takes  the  place  of  the  neat  villa ;  the  brown  heath,  of  the 
grassy  lea ;  and  unfenced  patches  of  corn  here  and  there 
alternate  with  plantings  of  dark  sombre  firs,  in  their  medi- 
ocre youth.  At  length  we  near  the  southern  boundary  of 
the  landscape,  —  an  undulating  moory  ridge,  partially 
planted ;  and  see  where  a  deep  gap  in  the  outline  opens  a 
way  to  the  upland  districts  of  the  province,  a  lively  hill- 
stream  descending  towards  the  east  thi-ough  the  bed  which 
it  has  scooped  out  for  itself  in  a  soft  red  conglomerate. 
The  section  we  have  come  to  explore  lies  along  its  course : 
it  has  been  the  grand  excavator  in  the  densely  occupied 
burial-ground  over  which  it  flows ;  but  its  labors  have  pro- 
duced but  a  shallow  scratch  after  all,  —  a  mere  ditch,  some 
ten  or  twelve  feet  deep,  in  a  deposit  the  entire  depth  of 
which  is  supposed  greatly  to  exceed  a  hundred  fathoms. 
The  shallow  section,  however,  has  been  well  wrought ;  and 
its  suit  of  fossils  is  one  of  the  finest,  both  from  the  great 
specific  variety  which  they  exhibit,  and  their  excellent 
state  of  keeping,  that  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstone  has 
anywhere  furnished. 

So  great  is  the  incoherency  of  the  matrix,  that  we  can 
dig  into  it  with  our  chisels,  unassisted  by  the  hammer.  It 
reminds  us  of  the  loose  gravelly  soil  of  an  ancient  grave- 
yard, partially  consolidated  by  a  night's  frost,  —  a  resem- 
blance still  further  borne  out  by  the  condition  and  appear- 
ance of  its  organic  contents.  The  numerous  bones 
disseminated  thoughout  the  mass  do  not  exist,  as  in  so 
many  of  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstone  rocks,  as  mere 
films  or  impressions,  but  in  their  original  forms,  retaining 
bulk  as  well  as  surface :  they  are  true  grave-yard  bones, 
which  may  be  detached  entire  from  the  inclosing  mass, 
and  of  which,  were  we  sufficiently  well  acquainted  with 
the  anatomy  of  the  long-perished  races  to  which  they 


228  THE   CRUISE   OP  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

belonged,  entire  skeletons  might  be  reconstructed.  I  suc- 
ceeded in  disinterring,  during  my  short  stay,  an  occipital 
plate  of  great  beauty,  fretted  on  its  outer  surface  by 
numerous  tubercles,  confluent  on  its  anterior  part,  and  sur- 
rounded on  its  posterior  portion,  where  they  stand  detached, 
by  punctulated  markings.  I  found  also  a  fine  scale  of 
Holoptychius  N'obilissimus,  and  a  small  tooth,  bent  some- 
what like  a  nail  that  had  been  drawn  out  of  its  place  by 
two  opposite  wrenches,  and  from  the  internal  structure  of 
which  Professor  Owen  has  bestowed  on  the  animal  to  which 
it  belonged  the  generic  name  Dendrodus.  I  have  ascer- 
tained, however,  through  the  indispensable  assistance  of 
Mr.  George  Sanderson,  that  the  genus  Holoptychius  of 
Agassiz,  named  from  a  peculiarity  in  the  sculpture  of  the 
scale,  is  the  identical  genus  Dendrodus  of  Professor  Owen, 
named  from  a  peculiarity  in  the  structure  of  the  teeth. 
Those  teeth  of  the  genus  Holoptychius,  whether  of  the 
LoAver  or  Upper  Old  Red,  that  belong  to  the  second  or 
reptile  row  with  which  the  creature's  jaws  were  furnished, 
present  in  the  cross  section  the  appearance  of  numerous 
branches,  like  those  of  trees,  radiating  from  a  centre  like 
spokes  from  the  nave  of  a  wheel ;  and  their  arborescent 
aspect  suggested  to  the  Professor  the  name  Dendrodus. 
It  seems  truly  wonderful,  when  one  but  considers  it,  to 
what  minute  and  obscure  ramifications  the  variety  of  pat- 
tern, specific  and  generic,  which  nature  so  loves  to  preserve, 
is  found  to  descend.  We  see  great  diversity  of  mode  and 
style  in  the  architecture  of  a  city  built  of  brick;  but  while 
the  houses  are  different,  the  bricks  are  always  the  same. 
It  is  not  so  in  nature.  The  bricks  are  as  dissimilar  as  the 
houses.  We  find,  for  instance,  those  differences,  specific 
and  generic,  that  obtain  among  fishes,  both  recent  and 
extinct,  descending  to  even  the  microscopic  structure  of 
their  teeth.  There  is  more  variety  of  pattern,  —  in  most 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.         229 

cases  of  very  elegant  pattern,  —  in  the  sliced  fragments  of 
the  teeth  of  the  ichthyolites  of  a  single  formation,  than  in 
the  carved  blocks  of  an  extensive  calico-print  yard.  Each 
species  has  its  OAvn  distinct  pattern,  as  if  in  all  the  indi- 
viduals of  which  it  consisted  the  same  block  had  been 
employed  to  stamp  it;  each  genus  has  its  own  general 
type  of  pattern,  as  if  the  same  inventive  idea,  variously 
altered  and  modified,  had  been  wrought  upon  in  all.  In 
the  genus  Dendrodus,  for  instance,  it  is  the  generic  type, 
that  from  a  central  nave  there  should  radiate,  spoke-like,  a 
number  of  leafy  branches ;  but  in  the  several  species,  the 
branches,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  belong  to  different 
shrubs,  and  present  dissimilar  outlines.  There  are  no 
repetitions  of  earlier  patterns  to  be  found  among  the 
generically  different  ichthyolites  of  other  formations.  "We 
see  in  the  world  of  fashion  old  modes  of  ornament  continu- 
ally reviving :  the  range  of  invention  seems  limited ;  and 
we  find  it  revolving,  in  consequence,  in  an  irregular,  ever- 
returning  cycle.  But  Infinite  resource  did  not  need  to 
travel  in  a  circle,  and  so  we  find  no  return  or  doublings  in 
its  course.  It  has  appeared  to  me,  that  an  argument 
against  the  transmutation  of  species,  were  any  such  needed, 
might  be  founded  on  those  inherent  peculiarities  of  struc- 
ture that  are  ascertained  thus  to  pervade  the  entire  texture 
of  the  framework  of  animals.  If  we  find  one  building  dif- 
fering from  another  merely  in  external  form,  we  have  no 
difficulty  in  conceiving  how,  by  additions  and  alterations, 
they  might  be  made  to  present  a  uniform  appearance; 
transmutation,  development,  progression,  —  if  one  may  use 
such  terms,  —  seem  possible  in  such  circumstances.  But 
if  the  buildings  differ  from  each  other,  not  only  in  external 
form,  but  also  in  every  brick  and  beam,  bolt  and  nail,  no 
mere  scheme  of  external  alteration  can  induce  a  real  resem- 
blance. Every  brick  must  be  taken  down,  and  every  beam 

20 


230        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OR, 

and  belt  removed.  The  problem  cannot  be  •wrought  by 
the  remodelling  of  an  old  house :  there  is  no  other  mode 
of  solving  it  save  by  the  erection  of  a  new  one. 

Among  the  singularly  interesting  Old  Red  fossils  of  Mr. 
Duff's  collection  I  saw  the  impression  of  a  large  ichthyolite 
from  the  superior  yellow  sandstone  of  the  Upper  Old  Red, 
which  had  been  brought  him  by  a  country  diker  only  a  few 
days  before.  In  breaking  open  a  building  stone,  the  diker 
had  found  the  inside  of  it,  he  said,  covered  over  with 
curiously  carved  flowers ;  and,  knowing  that  Mr.  Duff  had 
a  turn  for  curiosities,  he  had  brought  the  flowers  to  him. 
The  supposed  flowers  are  the  sculpturings  on  the  scales  of 
the  ichthyolite ;  and,  true  to  the  analogy  of  the  diker,  on 
at  least  a  first  glance,  they  may  be  held  to  resemble  the 
rather  equivocal  florets  of  a  cheap  wall-paper,  or  of  an 
ornamental  tile.  The  specimen  exhibits  the  impressions 
of  four  rows  of  oblong  rectangular  scales.  One  row  con- 
tains seven  of  these,  and  another  eight.  Each  scale  aver- 
ages about  an  inch  and  a  quarter  in  length,  by  about  three 
quarters  of  an  inch  in  breadth ;  and  the  parallelogramical 
field  which  it  presents  is  occupied  by  a  curious  piece  of 
carving.  By  a  sort  of  pictorial  illusion,  the  device  appeal's 
as  if  in  motion :  it  would  seem  as  if  a  sudden  explosion  had 
taken  place  in  the  middle  of  the  field,  and  as  if  the 
numerous  dislodged  fragments,  propelled  all  around  by  the 
central  force,  were  hurrying  to  the  sides.  But  these  seem- 
ing fragments  were  not  elevations  in  the  original  scale,  but 
depressions.  They  almost  seem  as  if  they  had  been  in- 
dented into  it,  in  the  way  one  sees  the  first  heavy  drops  of 
a  thunder  shower  indented  into  a  platform  of  damp  sea 
sand;  and  this  last  peculiarity  of  appearance  seems  to 
have  suggested  the  name  which  this  sole  representative  of 
an  extinct  genus  has  received  during  the  course  of  the  last 
few  weeks  from  Agassiz.  An  Elgin  gentleman  forwarded 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE   HEBRIDES.  231 

to  Neufchatel  a  singularly  fine  calotype  of  the  fossil,  taken 
by  Mr.  Adamson  of  Edinburgh,  with  a  full-size  drawing  of 
a  feAv  of  the  scales ;  and  from  the  calotype  and  the  draw- 
ing the  naturalist  has  decided  that  the  genus  is  entirely 
new,  and  that  henceforth  it  shall  bear  the  descriptive  name 
of  Stagonolepis,  or  drop-scale.  As  I  looked  for  the  first 
time  on  this  broken  fragment  of  an  ichthyolite,  —  the  sole 
representative  and  record  of  an  entire  genus  of  creatures 
that  had  been  once  called  into  existence  to  fulfil  some  wise 
purpose  of  the  Creator  long  since  accomplished,  —  I  be- 
thought me  of  Rogers' s  noble  lines  on  the  Torso,  — 

"  And  dost  thou  still,  thou  mass  of  breathing  stone, 
(Thy  giant  limbs  to  night  and  chaos  hurled) 
Still  sit  as  on  the  fragment  of  a  world, 
Surviving  all  ?  " 

Here,  however,  was  a  still  more  wonderful  Torso  than  that 
of  the  dismembered  Hercules,  which  so  awakened  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  poet.  Strange  peculiarities  of  being,  — 
singular  habits,  curious  instincts,  the  history  of  a  race  from 
the  period  when  the  all-producing  Word  had  spoken  the 
first  individuals  into  being,  until,  in  circumstances  unfitted 
for  their  longer  existence,  or  in  some  great  annihilating 
catastrophe,  the  last  individuals  perished,  —  were  all  asso- 
ciated with  this  piece  of  sculptured  stone ;  but,  like  some 
ancient  inscription  of  the  desert,  written  in  an  unknown 
character  and  dead  tongue,  its  dark  meanings  were  fast 
locked  up,  and  no  inhabitant  of  earth  possessed  the  key. 
Does  that  key  anywhere  exist,  save  in  the  keeping  of  Him 
who  knows  all  and  produced  all,  and  to  whom  there  is 
neither  past  nor  future  ?  Or  is  there  a  record  of  creation 
kept  by  those  higher  intelligences,  —  the  first-born  of  spir- 
itual natures,  —  whose  existence  stretches  far  into  the 
eternity  that  has  gone  by,  and  who  possess,  as  their 


232  THE   CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY. 

inheritance,  the  whole  of  the  eternity  to  come  ?  We  may 
be  at  least  assured,  that  nothing  can  be  too  low  for  angels 
to  remember,  that  was  not  too  low  for  God  to  create. 

I  took  coach  for  Edinburgh  on  the  following  morning ; 
for  with  my  visit  to  Scat-Craig  terminated  the  explorations 
of  my  Summer  Ramble.  During  the  summer  of  the  present 
year  I  have  found  time  to  follow  up  some  of  the  discoveries 
of  the  last.  In  the  course  of  a  hasty  visit  to  the  island  of 
Eigg,  I  succeeded  in  finding  in  situ  reptile  remains  of  the 
kind  which  I  had  found  along  the  shores  in  the  previous 
season,  in  detached  water-rolled  masses.  The  deposit  in 
which  they  occur  lies  deep  in  the  Oolite.  In  some  parts 
of  the  island  there  rest  over  it  alternations  of  beds  of  trap 
and  sedimentary  strata,  to  the  height  of  more  than  a 
thousand  feet;  but  in  the  line  of  coast  which  intervenes 
between  the  farm-house  of  Keill  and  the  picturesque  shiel- 
ing described  in  my  fifth  chapter,  it  has  been  laid  bare  by 
the  sea  immediately  under  the  cliffs,  and  we  may  see  it 
jutting  out  at  a  low  angle  from  among  the  shingle  and 
rolled  stones  of  the  beach  for  several  hundred  feet  together, 
charged  everywhere  with  the  teeth,  plates,  and  scales  of 
Ganoid  fishes,  and  somewhat  more  sparingly,  with  the  ribs, 
vertebras,  and  digital  bones  of  saurians.  But  a  full  des- 
cription of  this  interesting  deposit,  as  its  discovery  belongs 
to  the  Summer  Ramble  of  a  year,  the  ramblings  of  which 
are  not  yet  completed,  must  await  some  future  time. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

SUPPLEMENTARY. 

Supplementary—  Isolated  reptile  Remains  in  Eigg  —  Small  Isles  revisited  —  The 
Betsey  again — Storm  bound — Tacking  —  Becalmed  —  Medusae  caught  and 
described  —  Rain  —  A  Shoal  of  Porpoises  —  Change  of  Weather  —  The  bed- 
ridden Woman —  The  Poor  Law  Act  for  Scotland  —  Geological  Excursion  — 
Basaltic  Columns  —  Oolitic  Beds  —  Abundance  of  Organic  Remains  — Hybo- 
dus  Teeth  —  Discovery  of  reptile  Remains  in  situ  —  Musical  Sand  of  Laig 
re-examined  —  Explanation  suggested  —  Sail  for  Isle  Ornsay  —  Anchored 
Clouds  —  A  Leak  sprung  —  Peril  of  the  Betsey  —  At  work  with  Pump  and 
Pails  —  Safe  in  Harbor  —  Return  to  Edinburgh. 

IT  is  told  of  the  "  Spectator,"  on  his  own  high  authority, 
that  having  "read  the  controversies  of  some  great  men 
concerning  the  antiquities  of  Egypt,  he  made  a  voyage  to 
Grand  Cairo,  on  purpose  to  take  the  measure  of  a  pyramid, 
and  that,  so  soon  as  he  had  set  himself  right  in  that  par- 
ticular, he  returned  to  his  native  country  with  great  satis- 
faction." My  love  of  knowledge  has  not  carried  me 
altogether  so  far,  chiefly,  I  dare  say,  because  my  voyaging 
opportunities  have  not  been  quite  so  great.  Ever  since  my 
ramble  of  last  year,  however,  I  have  felt,  I  am  afraid,  a  not 
less  interest  in  the  geologic  antiquities  of  Small  Isles  than 
that  cherished  by  "  Spectator "  with  respect  to  the  com- 
paratively modern  antiquities  of  Egypt ;  and  as,  in  a  late 
journey  to  these  islands  the  object  of  my  visit  involved  but 
a  single  point,  nearly  as  insulated  as  the  dimensions  of  a 
pyramid,  I  think  I  cannot  do  better  than  shelter  myself 
under  the  authority  of  the  short -faced  gentleman  who  wrote 
articles  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  I  had  found  in  Eigg, 
20* 


234        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  OK, 

in  considerable  abundance  and  fine  keeping,  reptile  remains 
of  the  Oolite ;  but  they  had  occurred  in  merely  rolled 
masses,  scattered  along  the  beach.  I  had  not  discovered 
the  bed  in  which  they  had  been  originally  deposited,  and 
could  neither  tell  its  place  in  the  system,  nor  its  relation 
to  the  other  rocks  of  the  island.  The  discovery  was  but  a 
half-discovery,  —  the  half  of  a  broken  medal,  with  the  date 
on  the  missing  portion.  And  so,  immediately  after  the 
rising  of  the  General  Assembly  in  June  last  [1845],  I  set 
out  to  revisit  Small  Isles,  accompanied  by  my  friend  Mr. 
Swanson,  with  the  determination  of  acquainting  myself 
with  the  burial-place  of  the  old  Oolitic  reptiles,  if  it  lay 
anywhere  open  to  the  light. 

"We  found  the  Betsey  riding  in  the  anchoring  ground  at 
Isle  Ornsay,  in  her  foul-weather  dishabille,  with  her  top- 
mast struck  and  in  the  yard,  and  her  cordage  and  sides 
exhibiting  in  their  weathered  aspect  the  influence  of  the 
bleaching  rains  and  winds  of  the  previous  winter.  She 
was  at  once  in  an  undress  and  getting  old,  and,  as  seen 
from  the  shore  through  rain  and  spray,  —  for  the  weather 
was  coarse  and  boisterous,  —  she  had  apparently  gained  as 
little  in  her  good  looks  from  either  circumstance  as  most 
other  ladies  do.  We  lay  storm-bound  for  three  days  at 
Isle  Ornsay,  watching  from  the  window  of  Mr.  Swanson's 
dwelling  the  incessant  showers  sweeping  down  the  loch. 
On  the  morning  of  Saturday,  the  gale,  though  still  blow- 
ing right  ahead,  had  moderated ;  the  minister  was  anxious 
to  visit  this  island  charge,  after  his  absence  of  several 
weeks  from  them  at  the  Assembly ;  and  I,  more  than  half 
afraid  that  my  term  of  furlough  might  expire  ere  I  had 
reached  my  proposed  scene  of  exploration,  was  as  anxious 
as  he ;  and  so  we  both  resolved,  come  what  might,  on  dog- 
gedly beating  our  way  adown  the  Sound  of  Sleat  to  Small 
Isles.  If  the  wind  does  not  fail  us,  said  my  friend,  we 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    235 

have  little  more  than  a  day's  work  before  us,  and  shall  get 
into  Eigg  about  midnight.  "We  had  but  one  of  our  sea- 
men aboard,  for  John  Stewart  was  engaged  with  his 
potato  crop  at  home ;  but  the  minister  was  content,  in  the 
emergency,  to  rank  his  passenger  as  an  able-bodied  sea- 
man ;  and  so,  hoisting  sail  and  anchor,  we  got  under  way, 
and,  clearing  the  loch,  struck  out  into  the  Sound. 

We  tacked  in  long  reaches  for  several  hours,  now  open- 
ing up  in  succession  the  deep  withdrawing  lochs  of  the 
mainland,  now  clearing  promontory  after  promontory  in 
the  island  district  of  Sleat.  In  a  few  hours  we  had  left  a 
bulky  schooner,  that  had  quitted  Isle  Ornsay  at  the  same 
time,  full  five  miles  behind  us ;  but  as  the  sun  began  to 
decline,  the  wind  began  to  sink ;  and  about  seven  o'clock, 
when  we  were  nearly  abreast  of  the  rocky  point  of  Sleat, 
and  about  half-way  advanced  in  our  voyage,  it  had  died 
into  a  calm;  and  for  full  twenty  hours  thereafter  there 
was  no  more  sailing  for  the  Betsey.  We  saw  the  sun  set, 
and  the  clouds  gather,  and  the  pelting  rain  come  down, 
and  night-fall,  and  morning  break,  and  the  noon-tide  hour 
pass  by,  and  still  were  we  floating  idly  in  the  calm.  I 
employed  the  few  hours  of  the  Saturday  evening  that 
intervened  between  the  time  of  our  arrest  and  nightfall,  in 
fishing  from  our  little  boat  for  medusa?  with  a  bucket. 
They  had  risen  by  myriads  from  the  bottom  as  the  wind 
fell,  and  were  mottling  the  green  depths  of  the  water 
below  and  around  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  Among  the 
commoner  kinds,  —  the  kind  with  the  four  purple  rings  on 
the  area  of  its  flat  bell,  which  ever  vibrates  without  sound, 
and  the  kind  with  the  fringe  of  dingy  brown,  and  the  long 
stinging  tails,  of  which  I  have  sometimes  borne  from  my 
swimming  excursions  the  nettle-like  smart  for  hours, — 
there  were  at  least  two  species  of  more  unusual  occur- 
rence, both  of  them  very  minute.  The  one,  scarcely 


236  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

larger  than  a  shilling,  bore  the  common  umbiliferous  form, 
but  had  its  area  inscribed  by  a  pretty  orange-colored 
wheel;  the  other,  still  more  minute,  and  which  presented 
in  the  water  the  appearance  of  a  small  hazel-nut  of  a 
brownish-yellow  hue,  I  was  disposed  to  set  down  as  a  spe- 
cies of  beroe.  On  getting  one  caught,  hoAvever,  and  trans- 
ferred to  a  bowl,  I  found  that  the  brownish-colored,  melon- 
shaped  mass,  though  ribbed  like  the  beroe,  did  not  repre- 
sent the  true  outline  of  the  animal ;  it  formed  merely  the 
centre  of  a  transparent  gelatinous  bell,  which,  though 
scarce  visible  in  even  the  bowl,  proved  a  most  efficient 
instrument  of  motion.  Such  were  its  contractile  powers, 
that  its  sides  nearly  closed  at  every  stroke,  behind  the 
opaque  orbicular  centre,  like  the  legs  of  a  vigorous  swim- 
mer ;  and  the  animal,  unlike  its  more  bulky  congeners,  — 
that,  despite  their  slow  but  persevering  flappings,  seemed 
greatly  at  the  mercy  of  the  tide,  and  progressed  all  one 
way,  —  shot,  as  it  willed,  backwards,  forwards,  or  athwart. 
As  the  evening  closed,  and  the  depths  beneath  presented 
a  dingier  and  yet  dingier  green,  until  at  length  all  had 
become  black,  the  distinctive  colors  of  the  acelpha,  —  the 
purple,  the  orange,  and  the  brown,  —  faded  and  disap- 
peared, and  the  creatures  hung  out,  instead,  their  pale 
phosphoric  lights,  like  the  lanterns  of  a  fleet  hoisted  high 
to  prevent  collision  in  the  darkness.  Now  they  gleamed 
dim  and  indistinct  as  they  drifted  undisturbed  through  the 
upper  depths,  and  now  they  flamed  out  bright  and  green, 
like  beaten  torches,  as  the  tide  dashed  them  against  the 
vessel's  sides.  I  bethought  me  of  the  gorgeous  descrip- 
tion of  Coleridge,  and  felt  all  its  beauty :  — 

"  They  moved  in  tracks  of  shining  white, 
And  when  they  reared,  the  elfish  light 

Fell  off  in  hoary  flakes. 
Within  the  shadow  of  the  ship 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         237 

I  watched  their  rich  attire,  — 
Blue,  glassy  green,  and  velvet  black: 
They  curled,  and  swam,  and  every  track 

Was  a  flash  of  golden  fire." 

A  crew  of  three,  when  there  are  watches  to  set,  divides 
wofully  ill.  As  there  was,  however,  nothing  to  do  in  the 
calm,  we  decided  that  our  first  watch  should  consist  of  our 
single  seaman,  and  the  second  of  the  minister  and  his 
friend.  The  clouds,  which  had  been  thickening  for  hours, 
now  broke  in  torrents  of  rain,  and  old  Alister  got  into  his 
water-proof  oil-skin  and  souwester,  and  we  into  our  beds. 
The  seams  of  the  Betsey's  deck  had  opened  so  sadly  dui-- 
ing  the  past  winter,  as  to  be  no  longer  water-tight,  and  the 
little  cabin  resounded  drearily  in  the  darkness,  like  some 
dropping  cave,  to  the  ceaseless  patter  of  the  leakage.  We 
continued  to  sleep,  however,  somewhat  longer  than  we 
ought,  —  for  Alister  had  been  unwilling  to  waken  the  min- 
ister; but  we  at  length  got  up,  and,  relieving  watch  the 
first  from  the  tedium  of  being  rained  upon  and  doing  noth- 
ing, watch  the  second  was  set  to  do  nothing  and  be  rained 
upon  in  turn.  We  had  drifted  during  the  night-time  on  a 
kindly  tide,  considerably  nearer  our  island,  which  we  could 
now  see  looming  blue  and  indistinct  through  the  haze 

o  o 

some  seven  or  eight  miles  away.  The  rain  ceased  a  little 
before  nine,  and  the  clouds  rose,  revealing  the  surrounding 
lands,  island  and  main,  —  Rum,  with  its  abrupt  mountain- 
peaks, —  the  dark  Cuchullins  of  Skye,  —  and,  far  to  the 
south-east,  where  Inverness  bounds  on  Argyllshire,  some 
of  the  tallest  hills  in  Scotland,  —  among  the  rest,  the 
dimly-seen  Ben-Nevis.  But  long  wreaths  of  pale  gray 
cloud  lay  lazily  under  their  summits,  like  shrouds  half 
drawn  from  off  the  features  of  the  dead,  to  be  again  spread 
over  them,  and  we  concluded  that  the  dry  weather  had 
not  yet  come.  A  little  before  noon  we  were  surrounded 


238  THE   CRUISE   OF   THE   BETSEY;   OR, 

for  miles  by  an  immense  but  thinly-spread  shoal  of  por- 
poises, passing  in  pairs  to  the  south,  to  prosecute,  on  their 
own  behalf  the  herring  fishing  in  Lochfine  or  Gareloch ; 
and  for  a  full  hour  the  whole  sea,  otherwise  so  silent, 
became  vocal  Avith  long-breathed  blowings,  as  if  all  the 
steam-tenders  of  all  the  railways  in  Britain  were  careering 
around  us;  and  we  could  see  slender  jets  of  spray  rising  in 
the  air  on  every  side,  and  glossy  black  backs  and  pointed 
fins,  that  looked  as  if  they  had  been  fashioned  out  of  Kil- 
kenny marble,  wheeling  heavily  along  the  surface.  The 
clouds  again  began  to  close  as  the  shoal  passed,  but  we 
could  now  hear  in  the  stillness  the  measured  sound  of  oars, 
drawn  vigorously  against  the  gunwale  in  the  direction  of 
the  island  of  Eigg,  still  about  five  miles  distant,  though 
the  boat  from  which  they  rose  had  not  yet  come  in  sight. 
"  Some  of  my  poor  people,"  said  the  minister,  "  coming  to 
tug  us  ashore ! "  We  were  boarded  in  rather  more  than 
half  an  hour  after,  —  for  the  sounds  in  the  dead  calm  had 
preceded  the  boat  by  miles,  —  by  four  active  young  men, 
who  seemed  wonderfully  glad  to  see  their  pastor;  and 
then,  amid  the  thickening  showers,  which  had  recom- 
menced heavy  as  during  the  night,  they  set  themselves  to 
tow  us  into  the  harbor.  The  poor  fellows  had  a  long  and 
fatiguing  pull,  and  Avere  thoroughly  drenched  ere,  about 
six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  we  had  got  up  to  our  anchoring 
ground,  and  moored,  as  usual,  in  the  open  tide-way 
between  Eilan  Chasteil  and  the  main  island.  There  was 
still  time  enough  for  an  evening  discourse,  and  the  min- 
ister, getting  out  of  his  damp  clothes,  went  ashore  and 
preached. 

The  evening  of  Sunday  closed  in  fog  and  rain,  and  in 
fog  and  rain  the  morning  of  Monday  arose.  The  ceaseless 
patter  made  dull  music  on  deck  and  skylight  above,  and 
the  slower  drip,  drip,  through  the  leaky  beams,  drearily 


A   SUMMER    RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         239 

beat  time  within.  The  roof  of  my  bed  was  luckily  water- 
tight ;  and  I  could  look  out  from  my  snuggery  of  blankets 
on  the  desolations  of  the  leakage,  like  Bacon's  philosopher 
surveying  a  tempest  from  the  shore.  But  the  minister 
was  somewhat  less  fortunate,  and  had  no  little  trouble  in 
diverting  an  ill-conditioned  drop  that  had  made  a  dead  set 
at  his  pillow.  I  was  now  a  full  week  from  Edinburgh,  and 
had  seen  and  done  nothing;  and,  were  another  week  to 
pass  after  the  same  manner,  —  as,  for  aught  that  appeared, 
might  well  happen,  —  I  might  just  go  home  again,  as  I  had 
come,  with  my  labor  for  my  pains.  In  the  course  of  the 
afternoon,  however,  the  weather  unexpectedly  cleared  up, 
and  we  set  out  somewhat  impatiently  through  the  wet 
grass,  to  visit  a  cave  a  few  hundred  yards  to  the  west  of 
Nctomh  Frainyh)  in  which  it  had  been  said  the  Protestants 
of  the  island  might  meet  for  the  purposes  of  religious  wor- 
ship, were  they  to  be  ejected  from  the  cottage  erected  by 
Mr.  Swanson,  in  which  they  had  worshipped  hitherto. 
We  ree'xamined,  in  the  passing,  the  pitch  stone  dike  men- 
tioned in  a  former  chapter,  and  the  charnel  cave  of  Fran- 
ces ;  but  I  found  nothing  to  add  to  my  former  descriptions, 
and  little  to  modify,  save  that  perhaps  the  cave  appeared 
less  dark,  in  at  least  the  outer  half  of  its  area,  than  it  had 
seemed  to  me  in  the  former  year,  when  examined  by  torch- 
light, and  that  the  straggling  twilight,  as  it  fell  on  the  ropy 
sides,  green  with  moss  and  mould,  and  on  the  damp  bone- 
strewn  floor,  overmantled  with  a  still  darker  crust,  like 
that  of  a  stagnant  pool,  seemed  also  to  wear  its  tint  of 
melancholy  greenness,  as  if  transmitted  through  a  depth 
of  sea-water.  The  cavern  we  had  come  to  examine  we 
found  to  be  a  noble  arched  opening  in  a  dingy-colored 
precipice  of  augitic  trap,  —  a  cave  roomy  and  lofty  as  the 
nave  of  a  cathedral,  and  ever  resounding  to  the  dash  of 
the  sea ;  but  though  it  could  have  amply  accommodated  a 


240  THE   CRUISE    OP  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

congregation  of  at  least  five  hundred,  we  found  the  way 
far  too  long  and  difficult  for  at  least  the  weak  and  the 
elderly,  and  in  some  places  inaccessible  at  full  flood ;  and 
so  we  at  once  decided  against  the  accommodation  which 
it  offered.  But  its  shelter  will,  I  trust,  scarce  be  needed. 

On  our  return  to  the  Betsey,  we  passed  through  a  strag- 
gling group  of  cottages  on  the  hill-side,  one  of  which,  the 
most  dilapidated  and  smallest  of  the  number,  the  minister 
entered,  to  visit  a  poor  old  woman,  who  had  been  bed-rid- 
den for  ten  years.  Scarce  ever  before  had  I  seen  so  mis- 
erable a  hovel.  It  was  hardly  larger  than  the  cabin  of  the 
Betsey,  and  a  thousand  times  less  comfortable.  The  walls 
and  roof,  formed  of  damp  grass-grown  turf,  with  a  few 
layers  of  unconnected  stone  in  the  basement  tiers,  seemed 
to  constitute  one  continuous  hillock,  sloping  upwards  from 
foundation  to  ridge,  like  one  of  the  lesser  moraines  of 
Agassiz,  save  where  the  fabric  here  and  there  bellied  out- 
wards or  inwards,  in  perilous  dilapidation,  that  seemed  but 
awaiting  the  first  breeze.  The  low  chinky  door  opened 
direct  into  the  one  wretched  apartment  of  the  hovel, 
which  we  found  lighted  chiefly  by  holes  in  the  roof.  The 
back  of  the  sick  woman's  bed  was  so  placed  at  the  edge  of 
the  opening,  that  it  had  formed  at  one  time  a  sort  of  par- 
tition to  the  portion  of  the  apartment,  some  five  or  six  feet 
square,  which  contained  the  fire-place ;  but  the  boarding 
that  had  rendered  it  such  had  long  since  fallen  away,  and 
it  now  presented  merely  a  naked  rickety  frame  to  the  cur- 
rent of  cold  air  from  without.  Within  a  foot  of  the  bed- 
ridden woman's  head  there  was  a  hole  in  the  turf-wall, 
which  was,  we  saw,  usually  stuffed  with  a  bundle  of  rags, 
but  which  lay  open  as  we  entered,  and  which  furnished  a 
downward  peep  of  sea  and  shore,  and  the  rocky  Eilan 
Chasteil,  with  the  minister's  yacht  riding  in  the  channel 
hard  by.  The  little  hole  in  the  wall  had  formed  the  poor 


A   SUMMER  RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.         241 

creature's  only  communication  with  the  face  of  the  exter- 
nal world  for  ten  weary  years.  She  lay  under  a  dingy 
coverlet,  which,  whatever  its  original  hue,  had  come  to 
differ  nothing  in  color  from  the  graveyard  earth,  which 
must  so  soon  better  supply  its  place.  What  perhaps  first 
struck  the  eye  was  the  strange  flatness  of  the  bed-clothes, 
considering  that  a  human  body  lay  below :  there  seemed 
scarce  bulk  enough  under  them  for  a  human  skeleton. 
The  light  of  the  opening  fell  on  the  corpse-like  features  of 
the  woman,  —  sallow,  sharp,  bearing  at  once  the  stamp  of 
disease  and  of  famine ;  and  yet  it  was  evident,  notwith- 
standing, that  they  had  once  been  agreeable,  —  not  unlike 
those  of  her  daughter,  a  good-looking  girl  of  eighteen, 
who,  when  "we  entered,  was  sitting  beside  the  fire.  Neither 
mother  nor  daughter  had  any  English ;  but  it  was  not  dif- 
ficult to  determine,  from  the  welcome  with  which  the  min- 
ister was  greeted  from  the  sick-bed,  feeble  as  the  tones 
were,  that  he  was  no  unfrequent  visitor.  He  prayed 
beside  the  poor  creature,  and,  on  coming  away,  slipped 
something  into  her  hand.  I  learned  that  not  during  the 
ten  years  in  which  she  had  been  bed-ridden  had  she 
received  a  single  farthing  from  the  proprietor,  nor,  indeed, 
had  any  of  the  poor  of  the  island,  and  that  the  parish  had 
no  session-funds.  I  saw  her  husband  a  few  days  after,  — 
an  old  worn-out  man,  with  famine  written  legibly  in  his 
hollow  cheek  and  eye,  and  on  the  shrivelled  frame,  that 
seemed  lost  in  his  tattered  dress;  and  he  reiterated  the 
same  sad  story.  They  had  no  means  of  living,  he  said, 
save  through  the  charity  of  their  poor  neighbors,  who  had 
so  little  to  spare ;  for  the  parish  or  the  proprietor  had 
never  given  them  anything.  He  had  once,  he  added,  two 
fine  boys,  both  sailors,  who  had  helped  them ;  but  the  one 
had  perished  in  a  storm  off  the  Mull  of  Cantyre,  and  the 
other  had  died  of  fever  when  on  a  West  India  vovasre ; 

*       O       / 

21 


242  THE    CRUISE    OF    THE   BETSEY;     OR, 

and  though  their  poor  girl  was  very  dutiful,  and  staid  in 
their  crazy  hut  to  take  care  of  them  in  their  helpless  old 
age,  what  other  could  she  do  in  a  place  like  Eigg  than  just 
share  with  them  their  sufferings?  It  has  been  recently 
decided  by  the  British  Parliament,  that  in  cases  of  this 
kind  the  starving  poor  shall  not  be  permitted  to  enter  the 
law  courts  of  the  country,  there  to  sue  for  a  pittance  to 
support  lifef  until  an  intermediate  newly-erected  court, 
alien  to  the  Constitution,  before  which  they  must  plead  at 
their  own  expense,  shall  have  first  given  them  permission 
to  prosecute  their  claims.  And  I  doubt  not  that  many  of 
the  English  gentlemen  whose  votes  swelled  the  majority, 
and  made  it  such,  are  really  humane  men,  friendly  to  an 
equal-handed  justice,  and  who  hold  it  to  be  the  peculiar 
gloiy  of  the  Constitution,  as  well  shown  by  De  Lolme, 
that  it  has  not  one  statute-book  for  the  poor,  and  another 
for  the  rich,  but  the  same  law  and  the  same  administration 
of  law  for  all.  They  surely  could  not  have  seen  that  the 
principle  of  their  Poor  Law  Act  for  Scotland  sets  the  pau- 
per beyond  the  pale  of  the  Constitution  in  the  first 
instance,  that  he  may  be  starved  in  the  second.  The  suf- 
fering paupers  of  this  miserable  island  cottage  would  have 
all  their  wants  fully  satisfied  in  the  grave,  long  ere  they 
could  establish  at  their  own  expense,  at  Edinburgh,  their 
claim  to  enter  a  court  of  law.  I  know  not  a  fitter  case  for 
the  interposition  of  our  lately  formed  "  Scottish  Associa- 
tion for  the  Protection  of  the  Poor  "  than  that  of  this  mis- 
erable family ;  and  it  is  but  one  of  many  which  the  island 
of  Eigg  will  be  found  to  furnish. 

After  a  week's  weary  waiting,  settled  weather  came  at 
last ;  and  the  morning  of  Tuesday  rose  bright  and  fair. 
My  friend,  whose  absence  at  the  General  Assembly  had 
accumulated  a  considerable  amount  of  ministerial  labor  on 
his  hands,  had  to  employ  the  day  professionally;  and  as 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.         243 

John  Stewart  was  still  engaged  with  his  potato  crop,  I  was 
necessitated  to  sally  out  on  my  first  geological  excursion 
alone.  In  passing  vessel- wards,  on  the  previous  year,  from 
the  liu  fitoir  to  the  fai-m-house  of  Keill,  along  the  escarp- 
ment under  the  cliffs,  I  had  examined  the  shores  somewhat 
too  cursorily  during  the  one-half  of  my  journey,  and  the 
closing  evening  had  prevented  me  from  exploring  them 
during  the  other  half  at  all;  and  I  now  set  myself  leisurely 
to  retrace  the  way  backwards  from  the  farm-house  to  the 
Stoir.  I  descended  to  the  bottom  of  the  cliffs,  along  the 
pathway  which  runs  between  Keill  and  the  solitary  mid- 
way shieling  formerly  described,  and  found  that  the  basaltic 
columns  over  head,  which  had  seemed  so  picturesque  in 
the  twilight,  lost  none  of  their  beauty  when  viewed  by 
day.  They  occur  in  forms  the  most  beautiful  and  fantastic; 
here  grouped  beside  some  blind  opening  in  the  precipice, 
like  pillars  cut  round  the  opening  of  a  tomb,  on  some  rock- 
front  in  Petraaa;  there  running  in  long  colonnades,  or 
rising  into  tall  porticoes ;  yonder  radiating  in  straight  lines 
from  some  common  centre,  resembling  huge  pieces  of  fan- 
work,  or  bending  out  in  bold  curves  over  some  shaded 
chasm,  like  rows  of  crooked  oaks  projecting  from  the  steep 
sides  of  some  dark  ravine.  The  various  beds  of  which  the 
cliffs  are  composed,  as  courses  of  ashlar  compose  a  wall, 
are  of  very  different  degrees  of  solidity :  some  are  of  hard 
porphyritic  or  basaltic  trap ;  some  of  soft  Oolitic  sandstone 
or  shale.  Where  the  columns  rest  on  a  soft  stratum,  their 
foundations  have  in  many  places  given  way,  and  whole 
porticoes  and  colonnades  hang  perilously  forward  in  totter- 
ing ruin,  separated  from  the  living  rock  behind  by  deep 
chasms.  I  saw  one  of  these  chasms,  some  five  or  six  feet 
in  width,  and  many  yards  in  length,  that  descended  to  a 
depth  which  the  eye  could  not  penetrate;  and  another 
partially  filled  up  with  earth  and  stones,  through  which, 


244        THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY  ;  OR, 

along  a  dark  opening  not  much  larger  than  a  chimney-vent, 
the  boys  of  the  island  find  a  long  descending  passage  to 
the  foot  of  the  precipice,  and  emerge  into  light  on  the  edge 
of  the  grassy  talus  half-way  down  the  hill.  It  reminded 
me  of  the  tunnel  in  the  rock  through  which  Imlac  opened 
up  a  way  of  escape  to  Rasselas  from  the  happy  valley,  — 
the  "  subterranean  passage,"  begun  "  where  the  summit 
hung  over  the  middle  part,"  and  that  "  issued  out  behind 
the  prominence." 

From  the  commencement  of  the  range  of  cliffs,  on  half- 
way to  the  shieling,  I  found  the  shore  so  thickly  covered 
up  by  masses  of  trap,  the  debris  of  the  precipices  above, 
that  I  could  scarce  determine  the  nature  of  the  bottom  on 
which  they  rested.  I  now,  however,  reached  a  part  of  the 
beach  where  the  Oolitic  beds  are  laid  bare  in  thin  party- 
colored  strata,  and  at  once  found  something  to  engage  me. 
Organisms  in  vast  abundance,  chiefly  shells  and  fragmentary 
portions  of  fishes,  lie  closely  packed  in  their  folds.  One 
limestone  bed,  occurring  in  a  dark  shale,  seems  almost 
entirely  composed  of  a  species  of  small  oyster;  and  some 
two  or  three  other  thin  beds,  of  what  appears  to  be  either 
a  species  of  small  Mytilus  or  Avicula,  mixed  up  with  a  few 
shells  resembling  large  Paludina,  and  a  few  more  of  the 
gaper  family,  so  closely  resembling  existing  species,  that 
John  Stewart  and  Alister  at  once  challenged  them  as 
smiirslin,  the  Hebridean  name  for  a  well-known  shell  in 
these  parts, — the  My  a  truncata.  The  remains  of  fishes, — 
chiefly  Ganoid  scales  and  the  teeth  of  Placoids,  —  lie  scat- 
tered among  the  shells  in  amazing  abundance.  On  the 
surface  of  a  single  fragment,  about  nine  inches  by  five, 
which  I  detached  from  one  of  the  beds,  and  which  now 
lies  before  me,  I  reckon  no  fewer  than  twenty-five  teeth, 
and  twenty-two  on  the  area  of  another.  They  are  of  very 
various  forms,  —  some  of  them  squat  and  round,  like  ill- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    245 

formed  small  shot,  —  others  spiky  and  sharp,  not  unlike 
flooring  nails,  —  some  straight  as  needles,  some  bent  like 
the  beak  of  a  hawk,  —  some,  like  the  palatal  teeth  of  the 
Acrodus  of  the  Lias,  resemble  small  leeches ;  some,  bearing 
a  series  of  points  ranged  on  a  common  base,  like  masts  on 
the  hull  of  a  vessel,  the  tallest  in  the  centre,  belong  to  the 
genus  Hybodus.  There  is  a  palpable  approximation  in 
the  teeth  of  the  leech-like  form  to  the  teeth  with  the 
numerous  points.  Some  of  the  specimens  show  the  same 
plicated  structure  common"  to  both ;  and  on  some  of  the 
leech  backs,  if  I  may  so  speak,  there  are  protuberant  knobs, 
that  indicate  the  places  of  the  spiky  points  on  the  hybo- 
dent  teeth.  I  have  got  three  of  each  kind  slit  up  by  Mr. 
George  Sanderson,  and  the  internal  structure  appears  to 
be  the  same.  A  dense  body  of  bone  is  traversed  by  what 
seem  innumerable 'roots,  resembling  those  of  woody  shrubs 
laid  bare  along  the  sides  of  some  forest  stream.  Each  in^ 
ternal  opening  sends  oif  on  every  side  its  myriads  of  close- 
laid  filaments ;  and  nowhere  do  they  lie  so  thickly  as  in 
the  line  of  the  enamel,  forming,  from  the  regularity  with 
which  they  are  arranged,  a  sort  of  framing  to  the  whole 
section.  It  is  probable  that  the  Hybodus,  —  a  genus  of 
shark  which  became  extinct  some  time  about  the  beginning 
of  the  chalk,  —  united,  like  the  shark  of  Port  Jackson,  a 
crushing  apparatus  of  palatal  teeth  to  its  lines  of  cutting 
ones.  Among  the  other  remains  of  these  beds  I  found  a 
dense  fragment  of  bone,  apparently  reptilian,  and  a  curious 
dermal  plate  punctulated  with  thick-set  depressions, 
bounded  on  one  side  by  a  smooth  band,  and  altogether 
closely  resembling  some  saddler's  thimble  that  had  been 
cut  open  and  straightened 

Following  the  beds  downwards  along  the  beach,  I  found 
that  one  of  the  lowest  which  the  tide  permitted  me  to  ex- 
amine,—  a  bed  colored  with  a  tinge  of  red,  —  was  formed 

21* 


246  THE    CRUISE    OF   THE    BETSEY;    OR, 

of  a  denser  limestone  than  any  of  the  others,  and  composed 
chiefly  of  vast  numbers  of  small  univalves  resembling  Xe- 
rita}.  It  was  in  exactly  such  a  rock  I  had  found,  in  the 
previous  year,  the  reptile  remains ;  and  I  now  set  myself, 
with  no  little  eagerness,  to  examine  it.  One  of  the  first 
pieces  I  tore  up  contained  a  well-preserved  Plesiosaurian 
vertebra;  a  second  contained  a  vertebra  and  a  rib;  and, 
shortly  after,  I  -disinterred  a  large  portion  of  a  pelvis.  I 
had  at  length  found,  beyond  doubt,  the  reptile  remains  in 
situ.  The  bed  in  which  thy  occur  is  laid  bare  here  for  sev- 
eral hundred  feet  along  the  beach,  jutting  out  at  a  low 
angle  among  boulders  and  gravel,  and  the  reptile  remains 
we  find  embedded  chiefly  in  its  under  side.  It  lies  low  in 
the  Oolite.  All  the  stratified  rocks  of  the  island,  with  the 
exception  of  a  small  Liasic  patch,  belong  to  the  Lower 
Oolite,  and  the  reptile-bed  occurs  deep  in  the  base  of  the 
system,  —  low  in  its  relation  to  the  nether  division,  in 
which  it  is  included.  I  found  it  nowhere  rising  to  the  level 
of  high-water  mark.  It  forms  one  of  the  foundation  tiers 
of  the  island,  which,  as  the  latter  rises  over  the  sea  in  some 
places  to  the  height  of  about  fourteen  hundred  feet,  its  up- 
per peaks  and  ridges  must  overlie  the  bones,  making  allow- 
ance for  the  dip,  to  the  depth  of  at  least  sixteen  hundred. 
Even  at  the  close  of  the  Oolitic  period  this  sepulchral  stra- 
tum must  have  been  a  profoundly  ancient  one.  In  working 
it  out,  I  found  two  fine  specimens  of  fish  jaws,  still  retaining 
their  ranges  of  teeth ;  —  ichthyodorulites,  —  occipital  plates 
of  various  forms,  either  reptile  or  ichthyic,  —  Ganoid  scales, 
of  nearly  the  same  varieties  of  pattern  as  those  in  the  Weald 
of  Morayshire,  —  and  the  vertebra  and  ribs,  with  the  dig- 
ital, pelvic,  and  limb-bones,  of  saurians.  It  is  not  unworthy 
of  remark,  that  in  none  of  the  beds  of  this  deposit  did  I 
find  any  of  the  more  characteristic  shells  of  the  system,  — 
Ammonites,  Belemnites,  Gryphites,  or  Nautili. 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE   AMONG   THE   HEBRIDES.          247 

I  explored  the  shores  of  the  island  on  to  the  Itu  Stoir^ 
and  thence  to  the  Bay  of  Laig;  but  though  I  found 
detached  masses  of  the  reptile  bed  occurring  in  abundance, 
indicating  that  its  place  lay  not  far  beyond  the  fall  of  ebb, 
in  no  other  locality  save  the  one  described  did  I  find  it  laid 
bare.  I  spent  some  time  beside  the  Bay  of  Laig  in  ree'xam- 
ining  the  musical  sand,  in  the  hope  of  determining  the 
peculiarities  on  which  its  sonorous  qualities  depended.  But 
I  examined,  and  cross-examined  it  in  vain.  I  merely  suc- 
ceeded in  ascertaining,  in  addition  to  my  previous  observa- 
tions, that  the  loudest  sounds  are  elicited  by  drawing  the 
hand  slowly  through  the  incoherent  mass,  in  a  segment  of  a 
circle,  at  the  full  stretch  of  the  arm,  and  that  the  vibrations 
which  produce  them  communicate  a  peculiar  titillating  sen- 
sation to  the  hand  or  foot  by  which  they  are  elicited, 
extending  in  the  foot  to  the  knee,  and  in  the  hand  to  the 
elboAv.  When  we  pass  the  wet  finger  along  the  edge  of 
an  ale-glass  partially  filled  with  water,  we  see  the  vibrations 
thickly  wrinkling  the  surface :  the  undulations  which,  com- 
municated to  the  air,  produce  sound,  render  themselves, 
when  communicated  to  the  water,  visible  to  the  eye ;  and 
the  titillating  feeling  seems  but  a  modification  of  the  same 
phenomenon  acting  on  the  nerves  and  fluids  of  the  leg  or 
arm.  It  appears  to  be  produced  by  the  wrinklings  of  the 
vibrations,  if  I  may  so  speak,  passing  along  sentient  chan- 
nels. The  sounds  Avill  ultimately  be  found  dependent,  I  am 
of  opinion,  though  I  cannot  yet  explain  the  principle,  on  the 
purely  quartzose  character  of  the  sand,  and  the  friction  of 
the  incoherent  upper  strata  against  under  strata  coherent 
and  damp.  I  remained  ten  days  in  the  island,  and  went 
over  all  my  former  ground,  but  succeeded  in  making  no  fur- 
ther discoveries. 

On  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  June  25th,  we  set  sail  for 
Isle  Orusay,  with  a  smart  breeze  from  the  north-west.  The 


•248  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE  BETSEY;   OR, 

lower  and  upper  sky  was  tolerably  clear,  and  the  sun  looked 
cheerily  down  on  the  deep  blue  of  the  sea ;  but  along  the 
higher  ridges  of  the  laud  there  lay  long  level  strata  of  what 
the  meteorologists  distinguish  as  parasitic  clouds.  "When 
every  other  patch  of  vapor  in  the  landscape  was  in  motion, 
scudding  shorewards  from  the  Atlantic  before  the  still- 
increasing  gale,  there  rested  along  both  the  Scuir  of  Eigg 
and  the  tall  opposite  ridge  of  the  island,  and  along  the  steep 
peaks  of  Rum,  clouds  that  seemed  as  if  anchored,  each  on 
its  own  mountain-summit,  and  over  which  the  gale  failed  to 
exert  any  propelling  power.  They  were  stationary  in  the 
middle  of  the  rushing  current,  when  all  else  was  speeding 
before  it.  It  has  been  shown  that  these  parasitic  clouds  are 
mere  local  condensations  of  strata  of  damp  air  passing  along 
the  mountain-summits,  and  rendered  visible  but  to  the  extent 
in  which  the  summits  affect  the  temperature.  Instead  of 
being  stationary,  they  are  ever-forming  and  ever-dissipating 
clouds,  —  clouds  that  form  a  few  yards  in  advance  of  the 
condensing  hill,  and  that  dissipate  a  few  yards  after  they 
have  quitted  it.  I  had  nothing  to  do  on  deck,  for  we  had 
been  joined  at  Eigg  by  John  Stewart ;  and  so,  after  watch- 
ing the  appearance  of  the  stationary  clouds  for  some  little 
time,  I  went  below,  and,  throwing  myself  into  the  minister's 
large  chair,  took  up  a  book.  The  gale  meanwhile  freshened, 
and  freshened  yet  more ;  and  the  Betsey  leaned  over  till 
her  lee  chain-plate  lay  along  in  the  water.  There  was  the 
usual  combination  of  sounds  beneath  and  around  me,  —  the 
mixture  of  guggle,  clunk,  and  splash,  —  of  low,  continuous 
rush,  and  bluff,  loud  blow,  which  forms  in  such  circumstances 
the  voyager's  concert.  I  soon  became  aware,  however,  of 
yet  another  species  of  sound,  w^hich  I  did  not  like  hah''  so 
well,  —  a  sound  as  of  the  washing  of  a  shallow  current  over 
a  rough  surface ;  and,  on  the  minister  coming  below,  I  asked 
him,  tolerably  well  prepared  for  his  answer,  what  it  might 


A    SUMMER   RAMBLE    AMONG    THE    HEBRIDES.          249 

mean.  "It  means,"  he  said,  "that  we  have  sprung  a  leak, 
and  a  rather  bad  one ;  but  we  are  only  some  six  or  eight 
miles  from  the  Point  of  Sleat,  and  must  soon*  catch  the  land." 
He  returned  on  deck,  and  I  resumed  my  book.  Presently, 
however,  the  rush  became  greatly  louder ;  some  other  weak 
patch  in  the  Betsey's  upper  works  had  given  way,  and 
anon  the  water  -came  washing  up  from  the  lee  side  along  the 
edge  of  the  cabin  floor.  I  got  upon  deck  to  see  how  mat- 
ters stood  with  us ;  and  the  minister,  easing  off  the  vessel 
for  a  few  points,  gave  instant  orders  to  shorten  sail,  in  the 
hope  of  getting  her  upper  works  out  of  the  water,  and  then 
to  unship  the  companion  ladder,  beneath  which  a  hatch  com- 
municated with  the  low  strip  of  hold  under  the  cabin,  and 
to  bring  aft  the  pails.  We  lowered  our  foresail ;  furled  up 
the  mainsail  half-mast  high  ;  John  Stewart  took  his  station 
at  the  pump  ;  old  Alister  and  I,  furnished  with  pails,  took 
ours,  the  one  at  the  foot,  the  other  at  the  head,  of  the  com- 
panion, to  hand  up  and  throw  over ;  a  young  girl,  a  passen- 
ger from  Eigg  to  the  mainland,  lent  her  assistance,  and  got 
wofully  drenched  in  the  work  ;  while  the  minister,  retaining 
his  station  at  the  helm,  steered  right  on.  But  the  gale  had 
so  increased,  that,  notwithstanding  our  diminished  breadth 
of  sail,  the  Betsey,  straining  hard  in  the  rough  sea,  still  lay 
in  to  the  gunwale  ;  and  the  water,  pouring  in  through  a 
hundred  opening  chinks  in  her  upper  works,  rose,  despite  of 
our  exertions,  high  over  plank,  and  beam,  and  cabin-floor, 
and  went  dashing  against  beds  and  lockers.  She  was  evi- 
dently filling,  and  bade  fair  to  terminate  all  her  voyagings 
by  a  short  trip  to  the  bottom.  Old  Alister,  a  seaman  of 
thirty  years'  standing,  whose  station  at  the  bottom  of  the 
cabin  stairs  enabled  him  to  see  how  fast  the  water  was  gain- 
ing on  the  Betsey,  but  not  how  the  Betsey  was  gaining  on 
the  land,  was  by  no  means  the  least  anxious  among  us. 
Twenty  years  previous  he  had  seen  a  vessel  go  down  in 


250  THE   CRUISE   OF  THE   BETSEY;    OR, 

exactly  similar  circumstances,  and  in  nearly  the  same  place, 
and  the  reminiscence,  in  the  circumstances,  seemed  rather 
an  uncomfortable  one.  It  had  been  a  bad  evening,  he  said, 
and  the  vessel  he  sailed  in,  and  a  sloop,  her  companion,  were 
pressing  hard  to  gain  the  land.  The  sloop  had  sprung  a 
leak,  and  was  straining,  as  if  for  life  and  death,  under  a 
press  of  canvas.  He  saw  her  outsail  the  vessel  to  which 
he  belonged,  but,  when  a  few  shots  a-head  she  gave  a  sud- 
den lurch,  and  disappeared  from  the  surface  instantaneously 
as  a  vanishing  spectre,  and  neither  sloop  nor  crew  were  ever 
more  heard  of. 

There  are,  I  am  convinced,  few  deaths  less  painful  than 
some  of  those  untimely  and  violent  ones  at  which  we  are 
most  disposed  to  shudder.  We  wrought  so  hard  at  pail 
and  pump,  —  the  occasion,  too,  was  one  of  so  much  excite- 
ment, and  tended  so  thoroughly  to  awaken  our  energies,  — 
that  I  was  conscious,  during  the  whole  time,  of  an  exhilara- 
tion of  spirits  rather  pleasurable  than  otherwise.  My  fancy 
was  active,  and  active,  strange  as  the  fact  may  seem,  chiefly 
with  ludicrous  objects.  Sailors  tell  regarding  the  flying 
Dutchman,  that  he  was  a  hard-headed  captain  of  Amster- 
dam, who,  in  a  bad  night  and  head  wind,  when  all  the  other 
vessels  of  his  fleet  were  falling  back  on  the  port  they  had 
recently  quitted,  obstinately  swore  that,  rather  than  follow 
their  example,  he  would  keep  beating  about  till  the  day  of 
judgment.  And  the  Dutch  captain,  says  the  story,  was  just 
taken  at  his  word,  and  is  beating  about  still.  When  mat- 
ters were  at  the  worst  with  us,  we  got  under  the  lea  of  the 
point  of  Sleat.  The  promontory  interposed  between  us  and 
the  roll  of  the  sea ;  the  wind  gradually  took  off;  and,  after 
having  seen  the  water  gaining  fast  and  steadily  on  us  for 
considerably  more  than  an  hour,  we,  in  turn,  began  to  gain 
on  the  water.  It  came  ebbing  out  of  drawers  and  beds, 
and  sunk  downwards  along  pannels  and  table-legs, — a  sec- 


A  SUMMER  RAMBLE  AMONG  THE  HEBRIDES.    251 

ond  retiring  deluge ;  and  we  entered  Isle  Ornsay  with  the 
cabin-floor  all  visible,  and  less  than  two  feet  water  in  the 
hold.  On  the  following  morning,  taking  leave  of  my  friend 
the  minister,  I  set  off,  on  my  return  homewards,  by  the 
Skye  steamer,  and  reached  Edinburgh  on  the  evening  of 
Saturday. 


RAMBLES  OF  A  GEOLOGIST; 


OB, 


TEN  THOUSAND  MILES  OVER  THE  FOSSILIFEROUS 
DEPOSITS  OF  SCOTLAND. 


RAMBLES  OF  A  GEOLOGIST; 

OR, 

TEN  THOUSAND  MILES  OVER  THE  FOSSILIFEROUS  DEPOSITS 
OF  SCOTLAND.* 


CHAPTER    I. 

Embarkation  —  A  foundered  Vessel  —  Lateness  of  the  Harvest  dependent  on  the 
Geological  character  of  the  Soil  —  A  Granite  Harvest  and  an  Old  Red  Harvest 
—  Cottages  of  Redstone  and  of  Granite  —  Arable  Soil  of  Scotland  the  result 
of  a  Geological  Grinding  Agency  —  Locality  of  the  Famine  of  1846 — Mr. 
Longmuir's  Fossils — Geology  necessary  to  a  Theologian — Popularizers  of 
Science  wheii  dangerous — "Constitution  of  Man,"  and  "Vestiges  of  Crea- 
tion"—  Atop  of  the  Banff  Coach  —  A  Geologist's  Field  Equipment  —  The 
trespassing  "Stirk"  —  Silurian  Schists  inlaid  with  Old  Red  —  Bay  of  Gamrie 
how  formed  —  Gardenstone  —  Geological  Free-masonry  illustrated  —  How  to 
break  an  Ichthyolite  Nodule  —  An  old  Rhyme  mended  —  A  raised  Beach — 
Fossil  Shells  —  Scotland  under  water  at  the  time  of  the  Boulder  Clays. 

FROM  circumstances  that  in  no  way  call  for  explanation, 
my  usual  exploratory  ramble  was  thrown  this  year  (1847) 
from  the  middle  of  July  into  the  middle  of  September ;  and 
I  embarked  at  Granton  for  the  north  just  as  the  night  be- 
gan to  count  hour  against  hour  with  the  day.  The  weather 
was  fine,  and  the  voyage  pleasant.  I  saw  by  the  way, 
however,  at  least  one  melancholy  memorial  of  a  hurricane 
which  had  swept  the  eastern  coasts  of  the  island  about  a 
fortnight  before,  and  filled  the  provincial  newspapers  with 

*  This  second  title  bears  reference  to  the  extent  of  the  author's  geologic 
excursions  in  Scotland,  during  the  nine  years  from  1840  to  1848  inclusive. 


256  RAMBLES   OP   A    GEOLOGIST. 

paragraphs  of  disaster.  Nearly  opposite  where  the  Red 
Head  lifts  its  mural  front  of  Old  Red  Sandstone  a  hundred 
yards  over  the  beach,  the  steamer  passed  a  foundered  ves- 
sel, lying  about  a  mile  and  a  half  off  the  land,  with  but  her 
topmast  and  the  point  of  her  peak  over  the  surface.  Her 
vane,  still  at  the  mast-head,  was  drooping  in  the  calm ; 
and  its  shadow,  with  that  of  the  fresh-colored  spar  to  which 
it  was  attached,  white  atop  and  yellow  beneath,  formed  a 
well-defined  undulatory  strip  on  the  water,  that  seemed  as 
if  ever  in  the  process  of  being  rolled  up,  and  yet  still 
retained  its  length  unshortened.  Every  recession  of  the 
swell  showed  a  patch  of  mainsail  attached  to  the  peak :  the 
sail  had  been  hoisted  to  its  full  stretch  when  the  vessel 
went  down.  And  thus,  though  no  one  survived  to  tell  the 
story  of  her  disaster,  enough  remained  to  show  that  she 
had  sprung  a  leak  when  straining  in  the  gale,  and  that, 
when  staggering  under  a  press  of  canvas  towards  the  still 
distant  shore,  where,  by  stranding  her,  the  crew  had  hoped 
to  save  at  least  their  lives,  she  had  disappeared  with  a  sud- 
den lurch,  and  all  aboard  had  perished.  I  remembered 
having  read,  among  other  memorabilia  of  the  hurricane, 
without  greatly  thinking  of  the  matter,  that  "  a  large  sloop 
had  foundered  off  the  Red  Head,  —  name  unknown."  But 
the  minute  portion  of  the  wreck  which  I  saw  rising  over 
the  surface,  to  certify,  like  some  frail  memorial  in  a  church- 
yard, that  the  dead  lay  beneath,  had  an  eloquence  in  it 
which  the  words  wanted,  and  at  once  sent  the  imagination 
back  to  deal  Avith  the  stern  realities  of  the  disaster,  and  the 
feelings  abroad  to  expatiate  over  saddened  hearths  and 
melancholy  homesteads,  where  for  many  a  long  day  the 
hapless  perished  would  be  missed  and  mourned,  but  where 
the  true  story  of  their  fate,  though  too  surely  guessed  at, 
would  never  be  known. 

The  harvest  had  been  early ;  and  on  to  the  village  of 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  257 

Stonehaven,  and  a  mile  or  two  beyond,  where  the  fossilif- 
erous  deposits  end  and  the  primary  begin,  the  country 
presented  from  the  deck  only  a  wide  expanse  of  stubble. 
Every  farm-steading  we  passed  had  its  piled  stack-yard ; 
and  the  fields  were  bare.  But  the  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween the  Old  Red  Sandstone  and  the  granitic  districts 
formed  also  a  separating  line  between  an  earlier  and  later 
harvest ;  the  fields  of  the  less  kindly  subsoil  derived  from 
the  primary  rocks  were,  I  could  see,  still  speckled  with 
sheaves ;  and,  where  the  land  lay  high,  or  the  exposure  was 
unfavorable,  there  were  reapers  at  work.  All  along  in  the 
course  of  my  journey  northward  from  Aberdeen  I  con- 
tinued to  find  the  country  covered  with  shocks,  and  laborers 
employed  among  them ;  until,  crossing  the  Spey,  I  entered 
on  the  fossiliferous  districts  of  Moray ;  and  then,  as  in  the 
south,  the  champaign  again  showed  a  bare  breadth  of 
stubble,  with  here  and  there  a  ploughman  engaged  in  turn- 
ing it  down.  The  traveller  bids  farewell  at  Stonehaven  to 
not  only  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  and  the  early-harvest  dis- 
tricts, but  also  to  the  rich  wheat-lands  of  the  country,  and 
does  not  again  fairly  enter  upon  them  until,  after  travelling 
nearly  a  hundred  miles,  he  passes  from  Banffshire  into  the 
province  of  Moray.  He  leaves  behind  him  at  the  same  line 
the  wheat-fields  and  the  cottages  built  of  red  stone,  to  find 
only  barley  and  oats,  and  here  and  there  a  plot  of  rye,  asso- 
ciated with  cottages  of  granite  and  gneiss,  hyperstene  and 
mica  schist ;  but  on  crossing  the  Spey,  the  red  cottages 
reappear,  and  fields  of  rich  wheat-land  spread  out  around 
them,  as  in  the  south.  The  circumstance  is  not  unworthy 
the  notice  of  the  geologist.  It  is  but  a  tedious  process 
through  which  the  minute  lichen,  settling  on  a  surface  of 
naked  stone,  forms  in  the  course  of  ages  a  soil  for  plants  of 
greater  bulk  and  a  higher  order ;  and  had  Scotland  been 
left  to  the  exclusive  operation  of  this  slow  agent,  it  would 
22* 


258  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

be  still  a  rocky  desert,  with  perhaps  here  and  there  a  strip 
of  alluvial  meadow  by  the  side  of  a  stream,  and  here  and 
there  an  insulated  patch  of  rich  soil  among  the  hollows  of 
the  crags.  It  might  possess  a  few  gardens  for  the  spade, 
but  no  fields  for  the  plough.  We  owe  our  arable  land  to 
that  comparatively  modern  geologic  agent,  whatever  its 
character,  that  crushed,  as  in  a  mill,  the  upper  parts  of  the 
surface-rocks  of  the  kingdom,  and  then  overlaid  them  with 
their  own  debris  and  rubbish  to  the  depth  of  from  one  to 
forty  yards.  This  debris,  existing  in  one  locality  as  a 
boulder-clay  more  or  less  finely  comminuted,  in  another  as 
a  grossly  pounded  gravel,  forms,  with  few  exceptions,  that 
subsoil  of  the  country  on  which  the  existing  vegetation 
first  found  root ;  and,  being  composed  mainly  of  the  forma- 
tions on  which  it  more  immediately  rests,  it  partakes  of 
their  character,  —  bearing  a  comparatively  lean  and  hungry 
aspect  over  the  primary  rocks,  and  a  greatly  more  fertile 
one  over  those  deposits  in  which  the  organic  matters  of 
earlier  creations  lie  diffused.  Saxon  industry  has  done 
much  for  the  primary  districts  of  Aberdeen  and  Banff- 
shires,  though  it  has  failed  to  neutralize  altogether  the 
effects  of  causes  which  date  as  early  as  the  times  of  the 
Old  Red  Sandstone ;  but  in  the  Highlands,  which  belong 
almost  exclusively  to  the  non-fossiliferous  formations,  and 
which  were,  on  at  least  the  western  coasts,  but  imperfectly 
subjected  to  that  grinding  process  to  which  we  owe  our 
subsoils,  the  poor  Celt  has  permitted  the  consequences 
of  the  original  difference  to  exhibit  themselves  in  full. 

O 

If  we  except  the  islands  of  the  Inner  Hebrides,  the  famine 
of  1846  was  restricted  in  Scotland  to  the  primary  districts. 
I  made  it  my  first  business,  on  landing  in  Aberdeen,  to 
wait  on  my  friend  Mr.  Longmuir,  that  I  might  compare 
with  him  a  few  geological  notes,  and  benefit  by  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  surrounding  country.  I  was,  however,  unlucky 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  259 

enough  to  find  that  he  had  gone,  a  few  days  before,  on  a 
journey,  from  which  he  had  not  yet  returned ;  but,  through 
the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Longmuir,  to  whom  I  took  the  libei'ty 
of  introducing  myself,  I  was  made  free  of  his  stone-room, 
and  held  half  an  hour's  conversation  with  his  Scotch  fossils 
of  the  Chalk.  These  had  been  found,  as  the  readers  of  the 
Witness  must  remember  from  his  interesting  paper  on  the 
subject,  on  the  hill  of  Dudwick,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Ellon,  and  were  chiefly  impressions  —  some  of  them  of 
singular  distinctness  and  beauty  —  in  yellow  flint.  I  saw 
among  them  several  specimens  of  the  Inoceramus,  a  thin- 
shelled,  ponderously-hinged  conchifcr,  characteristic  of  the 
Cretaceous  group,  but  which  has  no  living  representative ; 
Avith  numerous  flints,  traversed  by  rough-edged,  bifurcated 
hollows,  in  which  branched  sponges  had  once  lain;  a  well- 
preserved  Pecten ;  the  impressions  of  spines  of  Echini  of 
at  least  two  distinct  species;  and  the  nicely-marked  im- 
pression of  part  of  a  Cidaris,  with  the  balls  on  which  the 
sockets  of  the  club-like  spines  had  been  fitted  existing  in 
the  print  as  spherical  moulds,  in  which  shot  might  be  cast, 
and  with  the  central  ligamentary  depression,  which  in  the 
actual  fossil  exists  but  as  a  minute  cavity,  projecting  into 
the  centre  of  each  hollow  sphere,  like  the  wooden  fusee 
into  the  centre  of  a  bomb-shell.  This  latter  cast,  fine  and 
sharp  as  that  of  a  medal  taken  in  sulphur,  seems  sufficient 
of  itself  to  establish  two  distinct  points :  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  siliceous  matter  of  which  the  flint  is  composed, 
though  now  so  hard  and  rigid,  must,  in  its  original  con- 
dition, have  been  as  impressible  as  wax  softened  to  receive 
the  stamp  of  the  seal ;  and,  in  the  next,  that  though  it  was 
thus  yielding  in  its  character,  it  could  not  have  greatly 
shrunk  in  the  process  of  hardening.  I  looked  with  no  little 
interest  on  these  remains  of  a  Scotch  formation  now  so 
entirely  broken  up,  that,  like  those  ruined  cities  of  the 


260  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

East  which  exist  but  as  mere  lines  of  wrought  material 
barring  the  face  of  the  desert,  there  has  not  "  been  left  one 
stone  of  it  upon  another,"  but  of  which  the  fragments, 
though  widely  scattered,  bear  imprinted  upon  them,  like 
the  stamped  bricks  of  Babylon,  the  story  of  its  original 
condition,  and  a  record  of  its  founders.  All  Mr.  Long- 
muir's  Cretaceous  fossils  from  the  hill  of  Dudwick  are  of 
flint, —  a  substance  not  easily  ground  down  by  the  denuding 
agencies. 

I  found  several  other  curious  fossils  in  Mr.  Longmuir's 
collection.  Greatly  more  interesting,  however,  than  any 
of  the  specimens  which  it  contains,  is  the  general  fact,  that 
it  should  be  the  collection  of  a  Free  Church  minister,  sedu- 
lously attentive  to  the  proper  duties  of  his  office,  but  who 
has  yet  found  time  enough  to  render  himself  an  accom- 
plished geologist ;  and  whose  week-day  lectures  on  the 
science  attract  crowds,  who  receive  from  them,  in  many 
instances,  their  first  knowledge  of  the  strange  revolutions 
of  which  our  globe  has  been  the  subject,  blent  with  the 
teachings  of  a  wholesome  theology.  The  present  age, 
above  all  that  has  gone  before,  is  peculiarly  the  age  of  phys- 
ical science ;  and  of  all  the  physical  sciences,  not  excepting 
astronomy  itself,  geology,  though  it  be  a  fact  worthy  of 
notice,  that  not  one  of  our  truly  accomplished  geologists  is 
an  infidel,  is  the  science  of  which  infidelity  has  most  largely 
availed  itself.  And  as  the  theologian  in  a  metaphysical 
age,  —  when  skepticism,  conforming  to  the  character  of  the 
time,  disseminated  its  doctrines  in  the  form  of  nicely  ab- 
stract speculations,  —  had,  in  order  that  the  enemy  might 
be  met  in  his  own  field,  to  become  a  skilful  metaphysician, 
he  must  now,  in  like  manner,  address  himself  to  the  tangi- 
bilities of  natural  history  and  geology,  if  he  would  avoid 
the  danger  and  disgrace  of  having  his  flank  turned  by  every 
sciolist  in  these  walks  whom  he  may  chance  to  encounter. 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  261 

It  is  those  identical  bastions  and  outworks  that  are  now 
attacked,  which  must  be  now  defended;  not  those  which 
were  attacked  some  eighty  or  a  hundred  years  ago.  And 
as  he  who  succeeds  in  first  mixing  up  fresh  and  curious 
truths,  either  with  the  objections  by  which  religion  is 
assailed  or  the  arguments  by  which  it  is  defended,  imparts  to 
his  cause  all  the  interest  which  naturally  attaches  to  these 
truths,  and  leaves  to  his  opponent,  who  passes  over  them 
after  him  as  at  second  hand,  a  subject  divested  of  the  fire- 
edge  of  novelty,  I  can  deem  Mr.  Longmuir  well  and  not 
unprofessionally  employed,  in  connecting  with  a  sound  creed 
the  picturesque  marvels  of  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the 
sciences,  and  by  this  means  introducing  them  to  his  people, 
linked,  from  the  first,  with  right  associations.  According 
to  the  old  fiction,  the  look  of  the  basilisk  did  not  kill  unless 
the  creature  saw  before  it  was  seen;  —  its  mere  return 
glance  was  harmless ;  and  there  is  a  class  of  thoroughly 
dangerous  writers  who  in  this  respect  resemble  the  basilisk. 
It  is  perilous  to  give  them  a  first  look  of  the  public.  They 
are  formidable  simply  as  the  earliest  popularizers  of  some 
interesting  science,  or  the  first  promulgators  of  some  class 
of  curious  little-known  facts,  with  which  they  mix  up  their 
special  contributions  of  error,  —  often  the  only  portion  of 
their  writings  that  really  belongs  to  themselves.  Nor  is  it 
at  all  so  easy  to  counteract  as  to  confute  them.  A  masterly 
confutation  of  the  part  of  their  works  truly  their  own  may, 
from  its  subject,  be  a  very  unreadable  book :  it  can  have  but 
the  insinuated  poison  to  deal  with,  unmixed  with  the  palat- 
able pabulum  in  which  the  poison  has  been  conveyed ;  and 
mere  treatises  on  poisons,  whether  moral  or  medical,  are 
rarely  works  of  a  very  delectable  order.  It  seems  to  be  on 
this  principle  that  there  exists  no  confutation  of  the  "  Con- 
stitution of  Man  "  in  which  the  ordinary  reader  finds  amuse- 
ment to  carry  him  through ;  whereas  the  work  itself,  full 


262  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

of  curious  miscellaneous  information,  is  eminently  readable ; 
and  that  the  "  Vestiges  of  Creation,"  —  a  treatise  as  enter- 
taining as  the  "  Arabian  Xights," —  bids  fair,  not  from  the 
amount  of  error  which  it  contains,  but  from  the  amount  of 
fresh  and  interestingly  told  truth  with  which  the  error  is 
mingled,  to  live  and  do  mischief  when  the  various  solidly- 
scientific  replies  which  it  has  called  forth  are  laid  upon  the 
shelf.  Both  the  "  Constitution  "  and  the  "  Vestiges  "  had 
the  advantage,  so  essential  to  the  basilisk,  of  taking  the  first 
glance  of  the  public  on  their  respective  subjects ;  whereas 
their  confutators  have  been  able  to  render  them  back  but 
mere  return  glances.  The  only  efficiently  counteractive 
mode  of  looking  down  the  danger,  in  cases  of  this  kind,  is 
the  mode  adopted  by  Mr.  Longmuir. 

There  was  a  smart  frost  next  morning;  and,  for  a 
few  hours,  my  seat  on  the  top  of  the  Banff  coach,  by 
which  I  travelled  across  the  country  to  where  the  Gamrie 
and  Banff  roads  part  company,  was  considerably  more 
cool  than  agreeable.  But  the  keen  morning  improved 
into  a  brilliant  day,  with  an  atmosphere  transparent  as  if 
there  had  been  no  atmosphere  at  all,  through  which  the 
distant  objects  looked  out  *as  sharp  of  outline,  and  in  as 
well-defined  light  and  shadow,  as  if  they  had  occupied 
the  background,  not  of  a  Scotch,  but  of  an  Italian  land- 
scape. A  few  speck-like  sails,  far  away  on  the  intensely 
blue  sea,  which  opened  upon  us  in  a  stretch  of  many 
leagues,  as  we  surmounted  the  moory  ridge  over  Macduff, 
gleamed  to  the  sun  with  a  radiance  bright  as  that  of  the 
sparks  of  a  furnace  blown  to  a  white  heat.  The  land, 
uneven  of  surface,  and  open,  and  abutting  in  bold  promon- 
tories on  the  frith,  still  bore  the  sunny  hue  of  harvest, 
and  seemed  as  if  stippled  over  with  shocks  from  the  ridgy 
hill  summits,  to  where  ranges  of  giddy  cliffs  flung  their 
shadows  across  the  beach.  I  struck  off  for  Gamrie  by  a 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  263 

path  that  runs  eastward,  nearly  parallel  to  the  shore, — 
which  at  one  or  two  points  it  overlooks  from  dark-colored 
cliffs  of  grauwacke  slate,  —  to  the  fishing  village  of  Gar- 
denstone.  My  dress  Avas  the  usual  fatigue  suit  of  russet, 
in  which  I  find  I  can  work  amid  the  soil  of  ravines  and 
quarries  with  not  only  the  best  effect,  but  with  even  the 
least  possible  sacrifice  of  appearance :  the  shabbiest  of  all 
suits  is  a  good  suit  spoiled.  My  hammer-shaft  projected 
from  my  pocket ;  a  knapsack,  with  a  few  changes  of  linen, 
slung  suspended  from  my  shoulders ;  a  strong  cotton  um- 
brella occupied  my  better  hand ;  and  a  gray  maud,  buckled 
shepherd-fashion  aslant  the  chest,  completed  my  equip- 
ment. There  were  few  travellers  on  the  road,  which 
forked  off  on  the  hill-side  a  short  mile  away,  into  two 
branches,  like  a  huge  letter  Y,  leaving  me  uncertain  which 
branch  to  choose ;  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  have  the 
•point  settled  by  a  woman  of  middle  age,  marked  by  a 
hard,  manly  countenance,  who  was  coming  up  towards 
me,  bound  apparently  for  the  Banff  or  Macduff  market, 
and  stooping  under  a  load  of  dairy  produce.  She  too, 
apparently,  had  her  purpose  to  serve  or  point  to  settle  ;  for 
as  we  met,  she  was  the  first  to  stand ;  and,  sharply  scan- 
ning my  appearance  and  aspect  at  a  glance,  she  abruptly 
addressed  me.  "  Honest  man,"  she  said,  "  do  you  see  yon 
house  wi'  the  chimla  ? "  "  That  house  with  the  farm- 
steadings  and  stacks. beside  it?"  I  replied.  "Yes."  "Then 
I  'd  be  obleeged  if  ye  wald  just  stap  in  as  ye'r  gaing  east 
the  gate,  and  tell  our  folk  that  the  stirk  has  gat  fra  her 
tether,  an'  'ill  brak  on  the  wat  clover.  Tell  them  to  sen' 
for  her  that  minute."  I  undertook  the  commission ;  and, 
passing  the  endangered  stirk,  that  seemed  luxuriating, 
undisturbed  by  any  presentiment  of  impending  peril, 
amid  the  rich  swathe  of  a  late  clover  crop,  still  damp  with 
the  dews  of  the  morning  frost,  I  tapped  at  the  door  of  the 


264  RAMBLES    OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

farm-house,  and  delivered  my  message  to  a  young  good- 
looking  girl,  in  nearly  the  words  of  the  woman  :  —  "  The 
gude-wife  bade  me  tell  them?  I  said,  "  to  send  that  instant 
for  the  stirk,  for  she  had  gat  fra  her  tether,  and  would 
brak  on  the  wat  clover."  The  girl  blushed  just  a  very 
little,  and  thanked  me ;  and  then,  after  obliging  me,  in 
turn,  by  laying  down  for  me  my  proper  route,  —  for  I  had 
left  the  question  of  the  forked  road  to  be  determined  at 
the  farm-house,  —  she  set  off  at  high  speed,  to  rescue  the 
unconscious  stirk.  A  walk  of  rather  less  than  two  hours 
brought  me  abreast  of  the  Bay  of  Gamrie,  —  a  picturesque 
indentation  of  the  coast,  in  the  formation  of  which  the 
agency  of  the  old  denuding  forces,  operating  on  deposits 
of  unequal  solidity,  may  be  distinctly  traced.  The  sur- 
rounding country  is  composed  chiefly  of  Silurian  schists, 
in  which  there  is  deeply  inlaid  a  detached  strip  of  moul- 
dering Old  Red  Sandstone,  considerably  more  than  twenty 
miles  in  length,  and  that  varies  from  two  to  three  miles  in 
breadth.  It  seems  to  have  been  let  down  into  the  more 
ancient  formation,  —  like  the  key-stone  of  a  bridge  into 
the  ringstones  of  the  arch  when  the  work  is  in  the  act  of 
being  completed,  —  during  some  of  those  terrible  convul- 
sions which  cracked  and  rent  the  earth's  crust,  as  if  it  had 
been  an  earthen  pipkin  brought  to  a  red  heat  and  then 
plunged  into  cold  water.  Its  consequent  occurrence  in  a 
lower  tier  of  the  geological  edifice  than  that  to  which  it 
originally  belonged  has  saved  it  from  the  great  denudation 
which  has  swept  from  the  surface  of  the  surrounding 
country  the  tier  composed  of  its  contemporary  beds  and 
strata,  and  laid  bare  the  grauwacke  on  which  this  upper 
tier  rested.  But  where  it  presents  its  narrow  end  to  the 
sea,  as  the  older  houses  in  our  more  ancient  Scottish  vil- 
lages present  their  gables  to  the  street,  the  waves  of  the 
German  Ocean,  by  incessantly  charging  against  it,  pro- 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  265 

polled  by  the  tempests  of  the  stormy  north,  have  hollowed 
it  into  the  Bay  of  Gainrie,  and  left  the  more  solid  grau- 
wacke  standing  ont  in  bold  promontories  on  either  side,  as 
the  headlands  of  Gamrie  and  Troup. 

In  passing  downwards  on  the  fishing  village  of  Garden- 
stone,  mainly  in  the  hope  of  procuring  a  guide  to  the  ich- 
thyolite  beds,  I  saw  a  laborer  at  work  with  a  pick-axe,  in 
a  little  craggy  ravine,  about  a  hundred  yards  to  the  left  of 
the  path,  and  two  gentlemen  standing  beside  him.  I 
paused  for  a  moment,  to  ascertain  whether  the  latter  were 
not  brother- workers  in  the  geologic  field.  "Hilloa! — '• 
here,"  —  shouted  out  the  stouter  of  the  two  gentlemen,  as 
if,  by  some  clairvoyant  faculty,  he  had  dived  into  my 
secret  thought;  "come  here."  I  went  down  into  the 
ravine,  and  found  the  laborer  engaged  in  disinterring  ich- 
thyolitic  nodules  out  of  a  bed  of  gray  stratified  clay,  iden- 
tical in  its  composition  with  that  of  the  Cromarty  fish- 
beds  ;  and  a  heap  of  freshly-broken  nodules,  speckled  with 
the  organic  remains  of  the  Lower~0ld  Red  Sandstone,  — 
chiefly  occipital  plates  and  scales,  —  lay  beside  him. 
"  Know  you  aught  of  these  ?  "  said  the  stouter  gentleman, 
pointing  to  the  heap.  "A  little,"  I  replied;  "but  your 
specimens  are  none  of  the  finest.  Here,  however,  is  a  dor- 
sal plate  of  Coccosteus;  and  here  a  scattered  group  of 
scales  of  Osteolepis;  and  here  the  occipital  plates  of 
Cheirolepis  Cummin gice  /  and  here  the  spine  of  the  ante- 
rior dorsal  of  Diplacanthus  striatus"  My  reading  of  the 
fossils  was  at  once  recognized,  like  the  mystic  sign  of  the 
freemason,  as  establishing  for  me  a  place  among  the  geo- 
logic brotherhood ;  and  the  stout  gentleman  producing  a 
spirit-flask  and  a  glass,  I  pledged  him  and  his  companion 
in  a  bumper.  "  Was  I  not  sure  ?  "  he  said,  addressing  his 
friend  :  "I  knew  by  the  cut  of  his  jib,  notwithstanding  his 
shepherd's  plaid,  that  he  was  a  wanderer  of  the  scientific 

23 


266  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

cast."  We  discussed  the  peculiarities  of  the  deposit, 
"which,  in  its  mineralogies!  character,  and  generically  in 
that  of  its  organic  contents,  resembles,  I  found,  the  fish- 
beds  of  Cromarty  (though,  curiously  enough,  the  interven- 
ing contemporary  deposits  of  Moray  and  the  western  parts 
of  Banffshire  differ  widely,  in  at  least  their  chemistry,  from 
both)  ;  and  we  were  right  good  friends  ere  we  parted.  To 
men  who  travel 'for  amusement,  incident  is  incident,  how- 
ever trivial  in  itself,  and  always  worth  something.  I 
showed  the  younger  of  the  two  geologists  my  mode  of 
breaking  open  an  ichthyolitic  nodule,  so  as  to  secure  the 
best  possible  section  of  the  fish.  "Ah,"  he  said,  as  he 
marked  a  style  of  handling  the  hammer  which,  save  for 
the  fifteen  years'  previous  practice  of  the  operative  mason, 
would  be  perhaps  less  complete,  —  "Ah,  you  must  have 
broken  open  a  great  many."  His  own  knowledge  of  the 
formation  and  its  ichthyolites  had  been  chiefly  derived,  he 
added,  from  a  certain  little  treatise  on  the  "Old  Red 
Sandstone,"  rather  popular  than  scientific,  which  he 
named.  I  of  course  claimed  no  acquaintance  with  the 
work ;  and  the  conversation  went  on. 

The  ill  luck  of  my  new  friends,  who  had  been  toiling 
among  the  nodules  for  hours  without  finding  an  ichthyo- 
lite  worth  transferring  to  their  bag,  showed  me  that,  with- 
out excavating  more  deeply  than  my  time  allowed,  I  had 
no  chance  of  finding  good  specimens.  But,  well  content 
to  have  ascertained  that  the  ichthyolite  bed  of  Garnrie  is 
identicaf  in  its  composition,  and,  generically  at  least,  in  its 
organisms,  with  the  beds  with  which  I  was  best  acquainted, 
I  rose  to  come  away.  The  object  which  I  next  proposed 
to  myself  was,  to  determine  whether,  as  at  Eathie  and 
Cromarty,  the  fossils  here  appear  not  only  on  the  hill-side, 
but  also  crop  out  along  the  shore.  On  taking  leave,  how- 
ever, of  the  geologists,  I  was  reminded  by  the  younger  of 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  267 

what  I  might  have  otherwise  forgotten,  —  a  raised  beach 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood  (first  described  by  Mr. 
Prestwich,  in  his  paper  on  the  Gamrie  ichthyolites),  which 
contains  shells  of  the  existing  species  at  a  higher  level 
than  elsewhere,  —  so  far  as  is  yet  known,  —  on  the  east 
coast  of  Scotland.  And,  kindly  conducting  me  till  he  had 
brought  me  full  within  view  of  it,  we  parted.  The  ichthy- 
olites which  I  had  just  been  laying  open  occur  on  the  , 
verge  of  that  Strathbogie  district  in  which  the  Church 
controversy  raged  so  hot  and  high ;  and  by  a  common 
enough  trick  of  the  associative  faculty,  they  now  recalled 
to  my  mind  a  stanza  which  memory  had  somehow  caught 
when  the  battle  was  at  the  fiercest.  It  formed  part  of  a 
satiric  address,  published  in  an  Aberdeen  newspaper,  to 
the  not  very  respectable  non-intrusionists  who  had  smoked 
tobacco  and  drank  Avhisky  in  the  parish  church  at  Culsal- 
mond,  on  the  day  of  a  certain  forced  settlement  there, 
specially  recorded  by  the  clerks  of  the  Justiciary  Court. 

"  Tobacco  and  whisky  cost  siller, 
And  meal  is  but  scanty  at  hame; 

But  gang  to  the  stane-mason  M r, 

Wi'  Old  Red  Sandstone  fish  he'll  fill  your  wame." 

Rather  a  dislocated  line  that  last,  I  thought,  and  too  much 
in  the  style  in  which  Zachary  Boyd  sings  "  Pharaoh  and 
the  Pascal."  And  as  it  is  wrong  to  leave  the  beast  of  even 
an  enemy  in  the  ditch,  however  long  its  ears,  I  must  just 
try  and  set  it  on  its  legs.  Would  it  not  run  better  thus  ? 

"  Tobacco  and  whisky  cost  siller, 

An'  meal  is  but  scanty  at  hame ; 
But  gang  to  the  stane-mason  M r," 

He'll  pang  wi'  ichth'dlites  your  wame, — 
Wi'  fish II  as  Agassiz  has  ca'ed  'em, 

In  Greek,  like  themsel's,  hard  an'  odd, 
That  were  baked  in  stane  pies  afoi'e  Adam 

Gaed  names  to  the  haddocks  and  cod. 


268  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

Bad  enough  as  rhyme,  I  suspect;  but  conclusive  as  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  the  animal  spirits,  under  the  influence 
of  the  bracing  walk,  the  fine  day,  and  the  agreeable 
recounter  at  the  fish-beds,  —  not  forgetting  the  half-gill 
bumper,  —  had  mounted  very  considerably  above  their 
ordinary  level  at  the  editorial  desk. 

The  raised  beach  may  be  found  on  the  slopes  of  a  grass- 
covered  eminence,  once  the  site  of  an  ancient  hill-fort,  and 
which  still  exhibits,  along  the  rim-like  edge  of  the  flat  area 
atop,  scattered  fragments  of  the  vitrified  walls.    A  general 
covering  of  turf  restricted  my  examination  of  the  shells  to 
one  point,  where  a  landslip  on  a  small  scale  had  laid  the 
deposit  bare ;  but  I  at  least  saw  enough  to  convince  me 
that  the  debris  of  the  shell-fish  used  of  old  as  food  by  the 
garrison  had  not  been  mistaken  for  the  remains  of  a  raised 
beach,  —  a  mistake  which  in  other  localities  has  occurred, 
I  have  reason  to  believe,  oftener  than  once.     The  shells, 
some  of  them  exceedingly  minute,  and  not  of  edible  spe- 
cies, occur  in  layers  in  a  siliceous  stratified  sand,  overlaid 
by  a  bed  of  bluish-colored  silt.     I  picked  out  of  the  sand 
two  entire  specimens  of  a  full-grown  Fusus,  little  more 
than  half  an  inch  in  length,  —  the  Fusus  turricola ;  and 
the  greater  number  of  the  fragments  that  lay  bleaching  at 
the  foot  of  the  broken  slope,  in  a  state  of  chalky  friability, 
seemed  to  be  fragments  of  those  smaller  bivalves,  belong- 
ing to  the  genera  Donax,  Venus,  and  Mactra,  that  are  so 
common  on  flat  sandy  shores.    But  when  the  sea  washed 
over  these  shells,  they  could  have  been  the  denizens  of  at 
least  no  flat  shore.     The  descent  on  which  they  occur 
sinks  downwards  to  the  existing  beach,  over  which  it  is 
elevated  at  this  point  two  hundred  and  thirty  feet,  at  an 
angle  with  the  horizon  of  from  thirty-five  to  forty  degrees. 
Were  the  land  to  be  now  submerged  to  where  they  appear 
on  the  hill-side,  the  bay  of  Gamrie,  as  abrupt  in  its  slopes 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  269 

as  the  upper  part  of  Loch  Lomond  or  the  sides  of  Loch 
Ness,  would  possess  a  depth  of  forty  fathoms  water  at 
little  more  than  a  hundred  yards  from  the  shore.  I  may 
add,  that  I  could  trace  at  this  height  no  marks  of  such  a 
continuous  terrace  around  the  sides  of  the  bay  as  the 
waves  would  have  infallibly  excavated  in  the  diluvium, 
had  the  sea  stood  at  a  level  so  high,  or,  according  to  the 
more  prevalent  view,  had  the  land  stood  at  a  level  so  low, 
for  any  considerable  time ;  though  the  green  banks  which 
sweep  ai'ound  the  upper  part  of  the  inflection,  unscarred 
by  the  defacing  plough,  would  scarce  have  failed  to  retain 
some  mark  of  where  the  surges  had  broken,  had  the 
surges  befen  long  there.  "Whatever  may  in  this  special 
case  be  the  fact,  however,  I  cannot  doubt  that  in  the  com- 
paratively modern  period  of  the  boulder  clays,  Scotland 
lay  buried  under  water  to  a  depth  at  least  five  times  as 
great  as  the  space  between  this  ancient  sea-beach  and  the 
existing  tide-line. 

23* 


CHAPTER    II. 

Character  of  the  Rocks  near  Gardenstone  —  A  Defunct  Father-lasher  —  A 
Geological  Inference  —  Village  of  Gardenstone  —  The  drunken  Scot  —  Gar- ' 
denstoue  Inn  —  Lord  Gardenstone  —  A  Tempest  threatened  —  The  Author's 
Ghost  Story  —  The  Lady  in  Green  —  Her  Appearance  and  Tricks  —  The  Res- 
cued Children  —  The  murdered  Peddler  and  his  Pack  —  Where  the  Green 
Dress  came  from  —  Village  of  Macduff —  Peculiar  Appearance  of  the  Beach 
at  the  Mouth  of  the  Deveron  —  Dr.  Emslie's  Fossils  —  Pteriehthys  quadratus  — 
Argillaceous  Deposit  of  Blackpots  —  Pipe-laying  in  Scotland.—  Fossils  of 
Blackpots  Clay  —  Mr.  Longmuir's  Description  of  them  —  Blackpots  Deposit  a 
He-formation  of  a  Liasic  Patch  —  Period  of  its  Formation. 

I  LINGERED  on  the  hill-side  considerably  longer  than  I 
ought ;  and  then,  hurrying  downwards  to  the  beach,  passed 
eastwards  under  a  range  of  abrupt,  mouldering  precipices 
of  red  sandstone,  to  the  village.  From  the  lie  of  the  strata, 
which,  instead  of  inclining  coastwise,  dip  towards  the  inte- 
rior of  the  country,  and  present  in  the  descent  seawards 
the  outcrop  of  lower  and  yet  lower  deposits  of  the  forma- 
tion, I  found  it  would  be  in  vain  to  look  for  the  ichthyolite 
beds  along  the  shore.  They  may  possibly  be  found,  how- 
ever, though  I  lacked  time  to  ascertain  the  fact,  along  the 
sides  of  a  deep  ravine,  which  occurs  near  an  old  ecclesias- 
tical edifice  of  gray  stone,  perched,  nest-like,  half-way  up 
the  bank,  on  a  green  hummock  that  overlooks  the  sea. 
The  rocks,  laid  bare  by  the  tide,  belong  to  the  bed  of 
coarse-grained  red  sandstone,  varying  from  eighty  to  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  thickness,  which  lies  between  the 
lower  fish-bed  and  the  great  conglomerate,  and  which,  in 
not  a  few  of  its  strata,  passes  itself  into  a  species  of  con- 
glomerate, different  only  from  that  which  it  overlies,  in 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  271 

being  more  finely  comminuted.  The  continuity  of  this 
bed,  like  that  of  the  deposit  on  which  it  rests,  is  very 
remarkable.  I  have  found  it  occurring  at  many  various 
points,  over  an  area  at  least  ten  thousand  square  miles  in 
extent,  and  bearing  always  the  same  well-marked  character 
of  a  more  thoroughly  ground-down  conglomerate  than  the 
great  conglomerate  on  which  it  reposes.  The  underlying 
bed  is  composed  of  broken  fragments  of  the  rocks  below, 
crushed,  as  if  by  some  imperfect  rudimentary  process,  like 
that  which  in  a  mill  merely  breaks  the  grain ;  whereas,  in 
the  bed  above,  a  portion  of  the  previously-crushed  materials 
seems  to  have  been  subjected  to  some  further  attritive 
process,  like  that  through  which,  in  the  mill,  the  broken 
grain  is  ground  down  into  meal  or  flour. 

As  I  passed  onwards,  I  saw,  amid  a  heap  of  drift-weed 
stranded  high  on  the  beach  by  the  previous  tide,  a  defunct 
father-lasher,  with  the  two  defensive  spines  which  project 
from  its  opercles  stuck  fast  into  little  cubes  of  cork,  that 
had  floated  its  head  above  water,  as  the  tyro-swimmer  floats 
himself  upon  bladders ;  and  my  previous  acquaintance  with 
the  habits  of  a  fishing  village  enabled  me  at  once  to  deter- 
mine why  and  how  it  had  perished.  Though  almost  never 
used  as  food  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Scotland,  it  had  been 
inconsiderate  enough  to  take  the  fisherman's  bait,  as  if  it 
had  been  worthy  of  being  eaten ;  and  he  had  avenged  him- 
self for  the  trouble  it  had  cost  him,  by  mounting  it  on  cork, 
and  sending  it  off",  to  wander  between  wind  and  water,  like 
the  Flying  Dutchman,  until  it  died.  Was  there  ever  on 
earth  a  creature  save  man  that  could  have  played  a  fellow- 
mortal  a  ti'ick  at  once  so  ingeniously  and  gratuitously 
cruel  ?  Or  what  would  be  the  proper  inference,  were  I  to 
find  one  of  the  many-thomed  ichthyolites  of  the  Lower  Old 
Red  Sandstone  with  the  spines  of  its  pectorals  similarly 
fixed  on  cubes  of  lignite?  —  that  there  had  existed  in  these 


272  RAMBLES    OE   A    GEOLOGIST. 

early  ages  not  merely  physical  death,  but  also  moral  evil ; 
and  that  the  being  who  perpetrated  the  evil  could  not  only 
inflict  it  simply  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  he  found  in  it, 
and  without  prospect  of  advantage  to  himself,  but  also  by 
so  adroitly  reversing,  fiend-like,  the  purposes  of  the  benevo- 
lent Designer,  that  the  weapons  given  for  the  defence  of  a 
poor  harmless  creature  should  be  converted  into  the  instru- 
ments of  its  destruction.  It  was  not  without  meaning  that 
it  was  forbidden  by  the  law  of  Moses  to  seethe  a  kid  in  its 
mother's  milk. 

A  steep  bulwark  in  front,  against  which  the  tide  lashes 
twice  every  twenty-four  hours,  —  an  abrupt  hill  behind,  — 
a  few  rows  of  squalid  cottages  built  of  red  sandstone,  much 
wasted  by  the  keen  sea-winds,  —  a  wilderness  of  dunghills 
and  ruinous  pig-styes,  —  women  seated  at  the  doors,  em- 
ployed in  baiting  li nes  or  mending  nets,  —  groups  of  men 
lounging  lazily  at  some  gable-end  fronting  the  sea, — herds 
of  ragged  children  playing  in  the  lanes,  —  such  are  the 
components  of  the  fishing  village  of  Gardenstone.  From 
the  identity  of  name,  I  had  associated  the  place  with  that 
Lord  Gardenstone  of  the  Court  of  Sessions  who  published, 
late  in  the  last  century,  a  volume  of  "  Miscellanies  in  Prose 
and  Verse,"  containing,  among  other  clever  things,  a  series 
of  tart  criticisms  on  English  plays,  transcribed,  it  was 
stated  in  the  preface,  from  the  margins  and  fly-leaves  of 
the  books  of  a  "  small  library  kept  open  by  his  Lordship  " 
for  the  amusement  of  travellers  at  the  inn  of  some  village 
in  his  immediate  neighborhood ;  and  taking  it  for  granted, 
somehow,  that  Gardenstone  was  the  village,  I  was  looking 
around  me  for  the  inn,  in  the  hope  that  where  his  Lordship 
had  opened  a  library  I  might  find  a  dinner.  But  failing  to 
discern  it,  I  addressed  myself  on  the  subject  to  an  elderly 
man  in  a  pack-sheet  apron,  who  stood  all  alone,  looking 
out  upon  the  sea,  like  Napoleon,  in  the  print,  from  a  pro- 


HAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  273 

jcction  of  the  bulwark.  He  turned  round,  and  showed,  by 
an  unmistakable  expression  of  eye  and  featm-e,  that  he  was 
what  the  servant  girl  in  "  Guy  Mannering  "  characterizes 
as  "  very  particularly  drunk,"  —  not  stupidly,  but  happily, 
funnily,  conceitedly  drunk,  and  full  of  all  manner  of  high 
thoughts  of  himself.  "  It  '11  be  an  awfu'  coorse  nicht,"  he 
said,  "  fra  the  sea."'  "  Very  likely,"  I  replied,  reiterating 
my  query  in  a  form  that  indicated  some  little  confidence 
of  receiving  the  needed  information  ;  "  I  daresay  you  could 
point  me  out  the  public-house  here  ? "  "  Aweel,  I  wat, 
that  I  can ;  but  what 's  that  ?  "  pointing  to  the  straps  of 
my  knapsack ;  —  "  are  ye  a  sodgcr  on  the  Queen's  account, 
or  ye'r  ain  ?  "  "  On  my  own,  to  be  sure ;  but  have  ye  a 
public-house  here?"  "Ay,  twa;  ye '11  be  a  traveller?" 
"  O  yes,  great  traveller,  and  very  hungry :  have  I  passed 
the  best  public-house  ?  "  "  Ay ;  and  ye  '11  hae  come  a  gude 
stap  the  day?"  A  woman  came  up,  with  spectacles  on 
nose,  and  a  piece  of  white  seam- work  in  her  hand ;  and, 
cutting  short  the  dialogue  by  addressing  myself  to  her,  she 
at  once  directed  me  to  the  public-house.  "  Hoot,  gudf 
wife,"  I  heard  the  man  say,  as  I  turned  down  the  stref  •„, 
"  we  suld  ha'e  gotten  mair  oot  o'  him.  He 's  a  great  trav- 
eller yon,  an'  has  a  gude  Scots  tongue  in  his  head." 

Travellers,  save  when,  during  the  herring  season,  an 
occasional  fish-curer  comes  the  way,  rarely  bait  at  the  Gar- 
dcnstone  inn ;  and  in  the  little  low-browed  room,  with  its 
windows  in  the  thatch,  into  which,  as  her  best,  the  land- 
lady ushered  me,  I  certainly  found  nothing  to  identify  the 
locale  with  that  chosen  by  the  literary  lawyer  for  his  open 
library.  But,  according  to  Ferguson,  though  "  learning 
was  scant,  provision  was  good ; "  and  I  dined  sumptuously 
on  an  immense  platter  of  fried  flounders.  There  was  a 
little  bit  of  cold  pork  added  to  the  fare ;  but,  aware  from 
previous  experience  of  the  pisciverous  habits  of  the  swine 


274  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

of  a  fishing  village,  I  did  what  I  knew  the  defunct  pig 
must  have  very  frequently  done  before  me,  —  satisfied  a 
keenly-whetted  appetite  on  fish  exclusively.  I  need  hardly 
remind  the  reader  that  Lord  Gardenstone's  inn  was  not 
that  of  Gardenstone,  but  that  of  Laurence-kirk,  —  the 
thriving  village  which  it  was  the  special  ambition  of  this 
law-lord  of  the  last  century  to  create ;  and  which,  did  it 
produce  only  its  famed  snuff-boxes,  with  the  invisible 
hinges,  would  be  rather  a  more  valuable  boon  to  the 
country  than  that  secured  to  it  by  those  law-lords  of  our 
own  days,  who  at  one  fell  blow  disestablished  the  national 
religion  of  Scotland,  and  broke  off  the  only  handle  by 
which  their  friends  the  politicians  could  hope  to  manage 
the  country's  old  vigorous  Presbyterianism.  Meanwhile 
it  was  becoming  apparent  that  the  man  with  the  apron  had 
as  shrewdly  anticipated  the  character  of  the  coming  night 
as  if  he  had  been  soberer.  The  sun,  ere  its  setting,  disap- 
peared in  a  thick  leaden  ha^,  which  enveloped  the  whole 
heavens ;  and  twilight  seemed  posting  on  to  night  a  full 
hour  before  its  time.  I  settled  a  very  moderate  bill,  and 
set  off  under  the  cliffs  at  a  roiind  pace,  in  the  hope  of 
scaling  the  hill,  and  gaining  the  high  road  atop  which  leads 
to  Macduff,  ere  the  darkness  closed.  I  had,  however,  mis- 
calculated my  distance ;  I,  besides,  lost  some  little  time  in 
the  opening  of  the  deep  ravine  to  which  I  have  already 
referred  as  that  in  which  possibly  the  fish-beds  may  be 
found  cropping  out ;  and  I  had  got  but  a  little  beyond  the 
gray  ecclesiastical  ruin,  with  its  lonely  burying-ground, 
when  the  tempest  broke  and  the  night  fell. 

One  of  the  last  objects  which  I  saw,  as  I  turned  to  take 
n  farewell  look  of  the  bay  of  Gamrie,  was  the  magnificent 
promontory  of  Troup  Head,  outlined  in  black  on  a  ground 
of  deep  gray,  with  its  two  terminal  stacks  standing  apart  in 
the  sea.  And  straightway,  through  one  of  those  tricks  of 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  275 

association  so  powerful  in  raising,  as  if  from  the  dead,  buried 
memories  of  things  of  which  the  mind  has  been  oblivious  for 
years,  there  started  up  in  recollection  the  details  of  an 
ancient  ghost-story,  of  which  I  had  not  thought  before  for 
perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  century.  It  had  been  touched,  I 
suppose,  in  its  obscure,  unnoted  corner,  as  Ithuriel  touched 
the  toad,  by  the  apparition  of  the  insulated  stacks  of  Troup, 
seen  dimly  in  the  thickening  twilight  over  the  solitary 
burying-ground.  For  it  so  chances  that  one  of  the  main 
incidents  of  the  story  bears  reference  to  an  insulated  sea- 
stack  ;  and  it  is  connected  altogether,  though  I  cannot  fix 
its  special  locality,  with  this  part  of  the  coast.  The  story 
had  been  long  in  my  mother's  family,  into  which  it  had  been 
originally  brought  by  a  great-grandfather  of  the  writer,  Avho 
quitted  some  of  the  seaport  villages  of  Banffshire  for  the 
northern  side  of  the  Moray  Frith,  about  the  year  1718; 
and,  when  pushing  on  in  the  darkness,  straining  as  I  best 
could,  to  maintain  a  sorely-tried  umbrella  against  the  capri- 
cious struggles  of  the  tempest,  that  now  tatooed  furiously 
upon  its  back  as  if  it  were  a  kettle-drum,  and  now  got 
underneath  its  stout  ribs,  and  threatened  to  send  it  up  aloft 
like  a  balloon,  and  anon  twisted  it  from  side  to  side,  and 
strove  to  turn  it  inside  out,  like  a  Kilmarnock  nightcap,  — 
I  employed  myself  in  arranging  in  my  mind  the  details  of 
the  narrative,  as  they  had  been  communicated  to  me  half  an 
age  before  by  a  female  relative. 

The  opening  of  the  stoiy,  though  it  existed  long  ere 
the  times  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  or  the  Waverly  novels,  bears 
some  resemblance  to  the  opening  in  the  "  Monastery,"  of 
the  story  of  the  White  Lady  of  Avenel.  The  wife  of  a 
Banft'shire  proprietor  of  the  minor  class  had  been  about  six 
months  dead,  when  one  of  her  husband's  ploughmen,  return- 
ing on  horseback  from  the  smithy,  in  the  twilight  of  an 
autumn  evening,  was  accosted,  on  the  banks  of  a  small 


276  RAMBLES   OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

stream,  by  a  stranger  lady,  tall  and  slim,  and  wholly  attired 
in  green,  with  her  lace  wrapped  up  in  the  hood  of  her  man- 
tle, who  requested  to  be  taken  up  behind  him  on  the  horse, 
and  carried  across.  There  was  something  in  the  tones  of 
her  voice  that  seemed  to  thrill  through  his  very  bones,  and 
to  insinuate  itself,  in  the  form  of  a  chill  fluid,  between  his 
skull  and  the  scalp.  The  request,  too,  appeared  a  strange 
one;  for  the  rivulet  was  small  and  low,  and  could  present 
no  serious  bar  to  the  progress  of  the  most  timid  traveller. 
But  the  man,  unwilling  ungallantly  to  offend  a  lady,  turned 
his  horse  to  the  bank,  and  she  sprang  up  lightly  behind 
him.  She  was,  however,  a  personage  that  could  be  better 
seen  than  felt ;  she  came  in  contact  with  the  ploughman's 
back,  he  said,  as  if  she  had  been  an  ill-filled  sack  of  wool ; 
and  when,  on  reaching  the  opposite  side  of  the  streamlet, 
she  leaped  down  as  slightly  as  she  had  mounted,  and  he 
turned  fearfully  round  to  catch  a  second  glimpse  of  her,  it 
was  in  the  conviction  that  she  was  a  creature  considerably 
less  earthly  in  her  texture  than  himself.  She  had  opened, 
with  two  pale,  thin  arms,  the  enveloping  hood,  exhibiting 
a  face  equally  pale  and  thin,  which  seemed  marked,  how- 
ever, by  the  roguish,  half-lnimorous  expression  of  one  who 
had  just  succeeded  in  playing  off  a  good  joke.  "My  dead 
mistress ! !  "  exclaimed  the  ploughman.  "  Yes,  John,  your 
mistress,"  replied  the  ghost.  "  But  ride  home,  my  bonny 
man,  for  it's  growing  late:  you  and  I  will  be  better 
acquainted  ere  long."  John  accordingly  rode  home  and 
told  his  story. 

Next  evening,  about  the  same  hour,  as  two  of  the  laird's 
servant-maids  were  engaged  in  washing  in  an  out-house, 
there  came  a  slight  tap  to  the  door.  "  Come  in,"  said  one 
of  the  maids  ;  and  the  lady  entered,  dressed,  as  on  the  pre- 
vious night,  iu  green.  She  swept  past  them  to  the  inner 
part  of  the  washing-room ;  and,  seating  herself  on  a  low 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  277 

bench,  from  which,  ere  her  death,  she  used  occasionally  to 
superintend  their  employment,  she  began  to  question  them, 
as  if  still  in  the  body,  about  the  progress  of  their  work.  The 
girls,  however,  were  greatly  too  frightened  to  make  any 
reply.  She  then  visited  an  old  woman  who  had  nursed  the 
laird,  and  to  whom  she  used  to  show,  ere  her  departure, 
greatly  more  kindness  than  her  husband.  And  she  now 
seemed  as  much  interested  in  her  welfare  as  ever.  She 
inquired  whether  the  laird  was  kind  to  her,  and  looking 
round  her  little  smoky  cottage,  regretted  she  should  be  so 
indifferently  lodged,  and  that  her  cupboard,  which  was 
rather  of  the  emptiest  at  the  time,  should  not  be  more 
amply  furnished.  For  nearly  a  twelvemonth  after,  scarce  a 
day  passed  in  which  she  was  not  seen  by  some  of  the  do- 
mestics ;  never,  however,  except  on  one  occasion,  after  the 
sun  had  risen,  or  before  it  had  set.  The  maids  could  see 
her,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning  flitting  like  a  shadow  round 
their  beds,  or  peering  in  upon  them  at  night  through  the 
dark  window-panes,  or  at  half-open  doors.  In  the  evening 
she  would  glide  into  the  kitchen  or  some  of  the  out-houses, 
—  one  of  the  most  familiar  and  least  dignified  of  her  class 
that  ever  held  intercourse  with  mankind,  —  and  inquire  of 
the  girls  how  they  had  been  employed  during  the  day; 
often,  however,  without  obtaining  an  answer,  though  from 
a  cause  different  from  that  which  had  at  first  tied  their 
tongues.  For  they  had  become  so  regardless  of  her  pres- 
ence, viewing  her  simply  as  a  troublesome  mistress,  who 
had  no  longer  any  claim  to  be  heeded,  that  when  she 
entered,  and  they  had  dropped  their  conversation,  under 
the  impression  that  their  visitor  was  a  creature  of  flesh  and 
blood  like  themselves,  they  would  again  resume  it,  remark- 
ing that  the  entrant  was  "only  the  green  lady."  Though 
always  cadaverously  pale,  and  miserable  looking,  she  affected 
a  joyous  disposition,  and  was  frequently  heard  to  laugh, 
24 


278  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

even  when  invisible.  At  one  time,  when  provoked  by  the 
studied  silence  of  a  servant  girl,  she  flung  a  pillow  at  her 
head,  which  the  girl  caught  up  and  returned;  at  another, 
she  presented  her  first  acquaintance,  the  ploughman,  with 
what  seemed  to  be  a  handful  of  silver  coin,  which  he  trans- 
ferred to  his  pocket,  but  which,  on  hearing  her  laugh,  he 
drew  out,  and  found  to  be  merely  a  handful  of  slate  shivers. 
On  yet  another  occasion,  the  man,  when  passing  on  horse- 
back through  a  clump  of  wood,  was  repeatedly  struck  from 
behind  the  trees  by  little  pellets  of  turf;  and,  on  riding  into 
the  thicket,  he  found  that  his  assailant  was  the  green  lady. 
To  her  husband  she  never  appeared ;  but  he  frequently 
heard  the  tones  of  her  voice  echoing  from  the  lower  apart- 
ments, and  the  faint  peal  of  her  cold,  unnatural  laugh. 

One  day  at  noon,  a  year  after  her  first  appeai-ance,  the 
old  nurse  was  surprised  to  see  her  enter  the  cottage ;  as 
all  her  previous  visits  had  been  made  early  in  the  morning 
or  late  in  the  evening;  whereas  now, — though  the  day 
was  dark  and  lowering,  and  a  storm  of  wind  and  rain  had 
just  broken  out,  —  still  it  was  day.  "Mammie,"  she  said, 
"  I  cannot  open  the  heart  of  the  laird,  and  I  have  nothing 
of  my  own  to  give  you ;  but  I  think  I  can  do  something 
for  you  now.  Go  straight  to  the  White  House  [that  of  a 
neighboring  proprietor],  and  tell  the  folk  there  to  set  out 
with  all  the  speed  of  man  and  horse  for  the  black  rock  in 
the  sea,  at  the  foot  of  the  crags,  or  they  '11  rue  it  dearly  to 
their  dying  day.  Their  bairns,  foolish  things,  have  gone 
out  to  the  rock,  and  the  tide  has  flowed  around  them ; 
and,  if  no  help  reach  them  soon,  they'll  be  all  scattered 
like  sea-w^are  on  the  shore  ere  the  fall  of  the  sea.  But  if 
you  go  and  tell  your  story  at  the  White  House,  mammie, 
the  bairns  will  be  safe  for  an  hour  to  come,  and  there  will 
be  something  done  by  their  mother  to  better  you,  for  the 
news."  The  woman  went,  as  directed,  and  told  her  story ; 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  279 

and  the  father  of  the  children  set  out  on  horse-back  in  hot 
haste  for  the  rock,  —  a  low,  insulated  skerry,  which,  lying 
on  a  solitary  part  of  the  beach,  far  below  the  line  of  flood, 
was  shut  out  from  the  view  of  the  inhabited  country  by  a 
wall  of  precipices,  and  covered  every  tide  by  several  feet 
of  water.  On  reaching  the  edge  of  the  cliffs,  he  saw  the 
black  rock,  as  the  woman  had  described,  surrounded  by 
the  sea,  and  the  children  clinging  to  its  higher  crags. 
But,  though  the  waves  were  fast  rising,  his  attempts  to 
ride  out  through  the  surf  to  the  poor  little  things  were 
frustrated  by  their  cries,  which  so  frightened  his  horse  as 
to  render  it  unmanageable ;  and  so  he  had  to  gallop  on  to 
the  nearest  fishing  village  for  a  boat.  So  much  time  was 
unavoidably  lost  in  consequence,  that  nearly  the  whole 
beach  Avas  covered  by  the  sea,  and  the  surf  had  begun  to 
lash  the  feet  of  the  precipices  behind ;  but  until  the  boat 
arrived,  not  a  single  wave  dashed  over  the  black  rock; 
though  immediately  after  the  last  of  the  children  had 
been  rescued,  an  immense  wreath  of  foam  rose  twice  a 
man's  height  over  its  topmost  pinnacle. 

The  old  nurse,  on  her  return  to  the  cottage,  found  the 
green  lady  sitting  beside  the  fire.  "  Mammie,"  she  said, 
"  you  have  made  friends  to  yourself  to-day,  who  will  be 
kinder  to  you  than  your  foster-son.  I  must  now  leave 
you.  My  time  is  out,  and  you  '11  be  all  left  to  yourselves ; 
but  I  '11  have  no  rest,  manimie,  for  many  a  twelvemonth  to 
come.  Ten  years  ago,  a  travelling  peddler  broke  into  our 
garden  in  the  fruit  season,  and  I  sent  out  our  old  plough- 
man, who  is  now  in  Ireland,  to  drive  him  away.  It  was  on 
a  Sunday,  and  everybody  else  was  in  church.  The  men 
struggled  and  fought,  and  the  peddler  was  killed.  But 
though  I  at  first  thought  of  bringing  the  case  before  the 
laird,  when  I  saw  the  dead  man's  pack,  with  its  silks  and 
its  velvets,  and  this  unhappy  piece  of  green  satin  (shaking 


280  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

her  dress),  my  foolish  heart  beguiled  me,  and  I  made  the 
ploughman  bury  the  peddler's  body  under  our  ash  tree,  in 
the  corner  of  our  garden,  and  we  divided  his  goods  and 
money  between  us.  You  must  bid  the  laird  raise  his 
bones,  and  carry  them  to  the  churchyard ;  and  the  gold, 
which  you  will  find  in  the  little  bowl  under  the  tapestry 
in  my  room,  must  be  sent  to  a  poor  old  widow,  the  ped- 
dler's mother,  who  lives  on  the  shore  of  Leith.  I  must 
now  away  to  Ireland  to  the  ploughman ;  and  I  '11  be  e'en 
less  welcome  to  him,  mammie,  than  at  the  laird's ;  but 
the  hungry  blood  cries  loud  against  us  both,  —  him  and 
me,  —  and  we  must  suffer  together.  Take  care  you  look 
not  after  me  till  I  have  passed  the  knowe."  She  glided 
away,  as  she  spoke,  in  a  gleam  of  light ;  and  when  the  old 
woman  had  withdrawn  her  hand  from  her  eyes,  dazzled 
by  the  sudden  brightness,  she  saw  only  a  large  black  gray- 
hound  crossing  the  moor.  And  the  green  lady  was  never 
afterwards  seen  in  Scotland.  The  little  hoard  of  gold 
pieces,  however,  stored  in  a  concealed  recess  of  her  former 
apartment,  and  the  mouldering  ruins  of  the  peddler  under 
the  ash  tree,  gave  evidence  to  the  truth  of  her  narrative. 
The  story  was  hardly  wild  enough  for  a  night  so  drear 
and  a  road  so  lonely ;  its  ghost-heroine  was  but  a  homely 
ghost-heroine,  too  little  aware  that  the  same  familiarity 
which,  according  to  the  proverb,  breeds  contempt  when 
exei-cised  by  the  denizens  of  this  world,  produces  similar 
effects  when  too  much  indulged  in  by  the  inhabitants  of 
another.  But  the  arrangement  and  restoration  of  the 
details  of  the  tradition,  —  for  they  had  been  scattered  in 
my  mind  like  the  fragments  of  a  broken  fossil,  —  furnished 
me  with  so  much  amusement,  when  struggling  with  the 
storm,  as  to  shorten  by  at  least  one-half  the  seven  miles 
which  intervene  between  Gamrie  and  Macduff.  Instead, 
however,  of  pressing  on  to  Banff,  as  I  had  at  first  intended, 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  281 

I  baited  for  the  night  at  a  snug  little  inn  in  the  latter  vil- 
lage, which  I  reached  just  Avet  enough  to  enjoy  the  luxury 
of  a  strong  clear  fire  of  Newcastle  coal. 

Mrs.  Longmuir  had  furnished  me  with  a  note  of  intro- 
duction to  Dr.  Emslie  of  Banff,  an  intelligent  geologist, 
familiar  with  the  deposits  of  the  district ;  and,  walking  on 
to  his  place  of  residence  next  morning,  in  a  rain  as  heavy 
as  that  of  the  previous  night,  I  made  it  my  first  business 
to  wait  on  him,  and  deliver  the  note.  Ere,  however, 
crossing  the  Deveron,  which  flows  between  Banff  and 
Macduff,  I  paused  for  a  few  minutes  in  the  rain,  to  mark 
the  peculiar  appearance  presented  by  the  beach  where  the 
river  disembogues  into  the  frith.  Occurring  as  a  rectangu- 
lar spit  in  the  line  of  the  shore,  with  the  expanded  stream 
widening  into  an  estuary  on  its  upper  side,  and  the  open 
sea  on  the  lower,  it  marks  the  scene  of  an  obstinate  con- 
test between  antagonist  forces,  —  the  powerful  sweep  of 
the  torrent,  and  the  not  less  poAverful  waves  of  the  stormy 
north-east ;  and  exists,  in  consequence,  as  a  long  gravelly 
prism,  which  presents  as  steep  an  angle  of  descent  to  the 
waves  on  the  one  side  as  to  the  current  on  the  other.  It 
is  a  true  river  bar,  beaten  in  from  its  proper  place  in  the 
sea  by  the  violence  of  the  surf,  and  fairly  stranded.  Dr. 
Emslie  obligingly  submitted  to  my  inspection  his  set  of 
Gamrie  fossils,  containing  several  good  specimens  of 
Pterichthys  and  Coccosteus,  undistinguishable,  like  those 
I  had  seen  on  the  previous  day,  in  their  state  of  keeping, 
and  the  character  of  the  nodular  matrices  in  which  they 
lie,  from  my  old  acquaintance  the  Cephalaspians  of  Crom- 
arty.  The  animal  matter  which  the  bony  plates  and  scales 
originally  contained  has  been  converted,  in  both  the  Gam- 
rie and  Cromarty  ichthyolites,  into  a  jet-black  bitumen  ; 
and  in  both,  the  inclosing  nodules  consist  of  a  smoke-col- 
ored argillaceous  limestone,  which  formed  around  the 
24* 


282  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

organisms  in  a  bed  of  stratified  clay,  and  at  once  exhibits, 
in  consequence,  the  rectilinear  lines  of  the  stratification, 
mechanical  in  their  origin,  and  the  radiating  ones  of  the 
sub-crystalline  concretion,  purely  a  trick  of  the  chemistry 
of  the  deposit.  A  Pterichthys  in  Dr.  Emslie's  collection 
struck  me  as  different  in  its  proportions  from  any  I  had 
previously  seen,  though,  from  its  state  of  rather  imperfect 
preservation,  I  hesitated  to  pronounce  absolutely  upon  the 
fact.  I  cannot  now  doubt,  however,  that  it  belonged  to  a 
species  not  figured  nor  described  at  the  tune ;  but  which, 
under  the  name  of  Pterichthys  quadratics,  forms  in  part 
the  subject  of  a  still  unpublished  memoir,  in  which  Sir 
Philip  Egerton,  our  first  British  authority  on  fossil  fish, 
has  done  me  the  honor  to  associate  my  humble  name  with 
his  own ;  and  which  will  have  the  effect  of  reducing  to 
the  ranks  of  the  Pterichthyan  genus  the  supposed  genera 
Pamphractus  and  Homothorax,  A  second  set  of  fossils, 
which  Dr.  Emslie  had  derived  from  his  tile-works  at 
Blackpots,  proved,  I  found,  identical  with  those  of  the 
Eathie  Lias.  As  this  Banffshire  deposit  had  formed  a  sub- 
ject of  considerable  discussion  and  difference  among  geol- 
ogists, I  was  curious  to  examine  it;  and  the  Doctor, 
though  the  day  was  still  none  of  the  best,  kindly  walked 
out  with  me,  to  bring  under  my  notice  appearances  which, 
in  the  haste  of  a  first  examination,  I  might  possibly  over- 
look, and  to  show  me  yet  another  set  of  fossils  which  he 
kept  at  the  works.  He  informed  me,  as  we  went,  that  the 
Grauwacke  (Lower  Silurian)  deposits  of  the  district,  hith- 
erto deemed  so  ban-en,  had  recently  yielded  their  organ- 
isms in  a  slate  quarry  at  Gamric-head;  and  that  they 
belong  to  that  ancient  family  of  the  Pennatularia  which, 
in  this  noilhern  kingdom,  seems  to  have  taken  precedence 
of  all  the  others.  Judging  from  what  now  appears,  the 
Graptolite  must  be  regarded  as  the  first  settler  who 


EAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  283 

squatted  for  <i  living  in  that  deep-sea  area  of  undefined 
boundary  occupied  at  the  present  time  by  the  bold  Avave- 
Avorn  headlands  and  blue  hills  of  Scotland ;  and  this  new 
Banffshire  locality  not  only  greatly  extends  the  range  of 
the  fossil  in  reference  to  the  kingdom,  but  also  establishes, 
in  a  general  Avay,  the  fossiliferous  identity  of  the  Lower 
Silurian  deposits  to  the  north  of  the  Grampians  Avith  that 
of  Peebles-shire  and  GalloAvay  in  the  south,  —  so  far  as  I 
knoAV,  the  only  other  tAVO  Scottish  districts  in  Avhich  this 
organism  has  been  found. 

The  argillaceous  deposit  of  Blackpots  occupies,  in  the 
form  of  a  green  SAvelling  bank,  a  promontory  rather  soft 
than  bold  in  its  contour,  that  projects  far  into  the  sea,  and 
forms,  when  tipped  with  its  slim  column  of  smoke  from 
the  tile-kiln,  a  pleasing  feature  in  the  landscape.  I  had 
set  it  doAvn  on  the  previous  day,  Avhen  it  first  caught  my 
eye  from  the  lofty  cliff's  of  Gamrie-head,  at  the  distance  of 
some  ten  or  tAvelve  miles,  as  different  in  character  from  all 
the  other  features  of  the  prospect.  The  country  generally 
is  moulded  on  a  framework  of  primary  rock,  and  presents 
headlands  of  hard,  sharp  outline,  to  the  attrition  of  the 
Avaves ;  whereas  this  single  headland  in  the  midst,  • —  soft- 
lined,  undulatory,  and  plump, — seems  suited  to  remind  one 
of  Burns's  young  Kirk  AlloAvay  beauty  disporting  amid  the 
thin  old  ladies  that  joined  with  her  in  the  dance.  And  it 
is  a  greatly  younger  beauty  than  the  Cambrian  and  mica- 
schist  protuberances  that  encroach  on  the  sea  on  either 
side  of  it.  The  sheds  and  kilns  of  a  tile-work  occupy  the 
flat  terminal  point  of  the  promontory ;  and  as  the  clay  is 
valuable,  in  this  tile-draining  age,  for  the  facility  with 
which  it  can  be  moulded  into  pipe-tiles  (a  purpose  which 
the  ordinary  clays  of  the  north  of  Scotland,  composed 
chiefly  of  re-formations  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  are 
Avhat  is  technically  termed  too  short  to  serve),  it  is  gradu- 


284  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

ally  retreating  inland  before  the  persevering  spade  and 
mattock  of-  the  laborer.  The  deposit  has  already  been 
drawn  out  into  many  hundred  miles  of  cylindrical  pipes, 
and  is  destined  to  be  drawn  out  into  many  thousands  more, 
—  such  being  one  of  the  strange  metamorphoses  effected 
in  the  geologic  formations,  now  that  that  curious  animal 
the  Biruana  has  come  upon  the  stage;  and  at  length  it 
will  have  no  existence  in  the  country,  save  as  an  immense 
system  of  veins  and  arteries  underlying  the  vegetable 
mould.  "Will  these  veins  and  arteries,  I  marvel,  fonn,  in 
their  turn,  the  fossils  of  another  period,  when  a  higher 
platform  than  that  into  which  they  have  been  laid  will  be 
occupied  to  the  full  by  plants  and  animals  specifically  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  the  present  scene  of  things,  —  the 
existences  of  a  happier  and  more  finished  creation  ?  My 
business  to-day,  however,  was  with  the  fossils  which  the 
deposit  now  contains,  —  not  with  those  which  it  may  ulti- 
mately form. 

The  Blackpots  clay  is  of  a  dark-bluish  or  greenish-gray 
color,  and  so  adhesive,  that  I  now  felt,  when  walking  among 
it,  after  the  softening  rains  of  the  previous  night  and  morn- 
ing, as  if  I  had  got  into  a  bed  of  bird-lime.  It  is  thinly 
charged  with  rolled  pebbles,  septaria,  and  pieces  of  a  bitu- 
minous shale,  containing  broken  Belemnites,  and  sorely- 
flattened  Ammonites,  that  exist  as  thin  films  of  a  white 
chalky  Lime.  The  pebbles,  like  those  of  the  boulder-clay 
of  the  northern  side  of  the  Moray  Frith,  are  chiefly  of  the 
primary  rocks  and  older  sandstones,  and  were  probably  in 
the  neighborhood,  in  their  present  rolled  form,  long  ere  the 
re-formation  of  the  inclosing  mass ;  while  the  shale  and" 
the  septaria  are,  as  shown  by  their  fossils,  decidedly  Liasic. 
I  detected  among  the  conchifers  a  well-marked  species  of 
our  northern  Lias,  figured  by  Sowerby  from  Eathie  speci- 
mens,— 'the  Plagiostoma  concentrica ;  and  among  the 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  285 

Cephalopoda,  thoiigh  considerably  broken,  the  JBelemnite 
elongatus  and  Belemnite  lanceolata,  with  the  Ammonite 
J±cenif/i  (mutabilis)^  —  all  Eathie  shells.  I,  besides,  found 
in  the  bank  a  piece  of  a  peculiar-looking  quartzose  sand- 
stone, traversed  by  hard  jaspedeous  veins  of  a  brownish- 
gray  color,  which  I  have  never  found,  in  Scotland  at  least, 
save  associated  with  the  Lias  of  our  north-eastern  coasts. 
Further,  my  attention  was  directed  by  Dr.  Emslie  to  a  fine 
Lignite  in  his  collection,  which  had  once  formed  some  eigh- 
teen inches  or  two  feet  of  the  trunk  of  a  straight  slender  pine, 
—  probably  the  Pinites  JSiygcnsis,  —  in  which,  as  in  most 
woods  of  the  Lias  and  Oolite,  the  annual  rings  are  as 
strongly  marked  as  in  the  existing  firs  or  larches  of  our 
hill-sides.*  The  Blackpots  deposit  is  evidently  a  re-forma- 

*  Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  seen  an  interesting  paper  in 
"  Hogg's  Weekly  Instructor,"  in  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Longmuir  of  Aber- 
deen describes  a  visit  to  the  Lias  clay  at  Blackpots.  Mr.  Longmuir  seems 
to  have  given  more  time  to  his  researches  than  I  found  it  agreeable,  in  a 
very  indifferent  day  to  devote  to  mine  ;  and  his  list  of  fossils  is  consider- 
ably longer.  Their  evidence,  however,  runs  in  exactly  the  same  tract 
with  that  of  the  shorter  list.  He  had  been  told  at  Banff  that  the  clay  con- 
tained "  petrified  tangles;"  and  the  first  organism  shown  him  by  the 
workmen,  on  his  arrival  at  the  deposit,  were  some  of  the  "  tangles " 
in  question.  "  These "  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  we  found,  as  may  have 
already  been  anticipated,  to  be  pieces  of  Bclenmite.<,  well  known  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Frith  as  '  thunderbolts,'  and  esteemed  of  sovereign  effi- 
cacy in  the  cure  of  bewitched  cattle."  Though  still  wide  of  the  mark, 
there  is  here  an  evident  descent  from  the  supernatural  to  the  physical, 
from  the  superstitious  to  the  true.  "  Satisfied  that  we  had  a  mass  of  Lias 
clay  before  us,  we  set  vigorously  to  work,  in  order  cither  to  find  additional 
characteristic  fossils,  or  obtain  data  on  which  to  form  a  conjecture  as  to 
the  history  of  this  out-of-the-way  deposit;  and  our  labor  was  not  without 
its  reward.  We  shall  now  present  a  brief  account  of  the  specimens  we 
picked  up.  Observing  a  number  of  stones  of  different  sizes,  that  had  been 
thrown  out,  as  they  were  struck,  by  the  workman's  shovel,  we  immedi- 
ately commenced,  and,  like  an  inquisitor  of  old,  knocked  our  victims  on  the 
head,  that  they  might  reveal  their  secrets;  or,  like  a  Roman  haruspex, 
examined  their  interior,  —  not,  however,  to  obtain  a  knowledge  of  the  fu- 


286  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

tion  of  a  Liasic  patch,  identical,  both"  in  mineralogies! 
character  and  in  its  organic  remains,  with  the  lower  beds 
of  the  Eathie  Lias ;  while  the  fragments  of  shale  which  it 
contains  belong  chiefly  to  an  upper  Liasic  bed.  So  rich  is 

tare,  but  only  to  take  a  peep  into  the  past.  1.  Here,  then,  we  take  up,  not  a 
regular  Lias  lime  nodule,  but  what  appears  to  have  formed  part  of  one ; 
and  the  first  blow  has  laid  open  part  of  a  whorl  of  an  Ammonite,  which, 
when  complete,  must  have  measured  three  or  four  inches  in  diameter,  and 
it  is  perfectly  assimilated  to  the  calcareous  matrix.  2.  Here  is  a  mass  of 
indurated  clay ;  and  a  gentle  blow  has  exposed  part  of  two  Ammonites, 
smaller  than  the  former,  but  their  shells  are  white  and  powdery  like  chalk. 
3.  Another  fragment  is  laid  open  ;  and  there,  quite  unmistakably,  lie 
the  umbo  and  greater  portion  of  the  Plagiostoma  concentricum.  4.  Another 
fragment  of  a  granular  gritty  structure  presents  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  interior  of  one  of  the  shells  of  a  Pecten,  but  whether  the  attached  frag- 
ment is  part  of  one  of  its  ears,  or  of  the  other  valve  turned  backward,  is 
not  so  easily  determined.  5.  Here  is  a  piece  of  Belemnitc  in  limestone, 
and  the  fracture  in  the  fossil  presents  the  usual  glistening  planes  of  cleav- 
age. 6.  Next  we  take  up  a  piece  of  distinctly  laminated  Lias,  with  Am- 
monites as  thick  as  they  can  lie  on  the  pages  of  this  black  book  of  natu- 
ral history.  7.  Once  more  we  strike,  and  we  have  the  cast  and  part  of  the 
shell  of  another  bivalve ;  but  the  valves  have  been  jerked  off  each  other,  and 
have  suffered  a  severe  compound  fracture;  nevertheless  we  can  have  little 
hesitation  in  pronouncing  it  a  species  of  unio.  8.  Here  is  another  piece  of 
limestone,  with  its  small  fragment  of  another  shell,  of  very  delicate  tex- 
ture, with  finely  marked  traverse  striae.  We  are  unwilling  to  decide  on 
such  slight  evidence,  but  feel  inclined  to  refer  it  to  some  species  of  Pla- 
giostoma. 9.  Here  is  a  piece  of  pyrites,  not  quite  so  large  as  the  first, 
and  so  vegetable-like  in  its  markings,  that  it  might  be  mistaken  for  part 
of  a  branch  of  a  tree.  This  is  also  characteristic  of  the  Lias  ;  for  when 
the  shales  arc  deeply  impregnated  with  bitumen  and  pyrites,  they  undergo 
a  slow  combustion  when  heaped  up  with  faggots  and  set  on  fire  ;  and  in 
the  cliffs  of  the  Yorkshire  coast,  after  rainy  weather,  they  sometimes 
spontaneously  ignite,  and  continue  to  burn  for  several  months.  10.  As  we 
passed  through  the  works,  on  our  way  to  the  clay,  we  observed  a  sort  of 
reservoir,  into  which  the  clay,  after  being  freed  from  its  impurities,  had 
been  run  in  a  liquid  state;  the  water  had  evaporated,  and  the  drying  clay 
had  cracked  in  every  direction.  Here  we  find  its  counterpart  in  this  large 
mass  of  stone;  only  the  clay  here,  mixed  with  a  portion  of  lime  is  petri- 
fied, and  the  fissures  filled  up  with  carbonate  of  lime;  thus  forming  the 
scptaria,  or  cement  stone.  We  have  dressed  a  specimen  of  it  for  our 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  287 

the  dark-colored  tenacious  argil  of  the  Inferior  Lias  of 
Eatliie,  that  the  geologist  who  walks  over  it  when  it  is  still 
moist  with  the  receding  tide  would  do  well  to  look  to  his 
footing ;  —  the  mixture  of  soap  and  grease  spread  by  the 

guide,  who  has  a  friend  that  will  polish  it,  when  the  dark  Lias  will  be 
strikingly  contrasted  with  the  white  lime,  and  form  rather  a  pretty  piece 
of  natural  mosaic.  11.  Coming  to  a  simple  piece  of  machinery  for  re- 
moving fragments  of  shale  and  stone  from  the  clay,  we  examined  some  of 
the  bits  so  rejected,  and  found  what  we  had  no  doubt  were  fish-scales. 
12.  We  have  yet  to  notice  certain  long  slender  bodies,  outwardly  brown, 
but  inwardly  nearly  black,  resembling  whip-cord  in  size.  Are  we  to  re- 
gard these  as  specimens  of  a  fucus,  perhaps  thefilum,  or  allied  to  it,  which 
is  known  in  some  places  by  the  appropriate  name  of  sea-laces  ?  13.  Pass- 
ing on  to  the  office,  we  were  shown  a  chop  of  wood  that  had  been  found 
in  the  clay,  and  was  destined  for  the  Banff  Museum.  It  is  about  eighteen 
inches  in  length,  and  half  as  much  in  breadth;  and  although  evidently 
water-worn,  yet  we  could  count  between  twenty-five  and  thirty  concentric 
rings  on  one  of  its  ends,  which  not  only  enabled  us  to  form  some  conjec- 
ture of  its  age  previous  to  its  overthrow,  but  also  justified  us  in  referring 
it  to  the  conifera?  of  the  vorwelt,  or  ancient  world." 

Mr.  Longmuir  makes  the  following  shrewd  remarks,  in  answering  the 
question,  "  Whether  have  we  here  a  mass  of  Lias  clay,  as  originally  de- 
posited, or  has  it  resulted  from  the  breaking  up  of  Lias-shale  ?  "  "  The 
former  alternative,"  says  Mr.  Longmuir,  "  we  have  heard,  has  been  main- 
tained; but  we  are  inclined  to  adopt  the  latter,  and  that  for  the  following 
reasons  :  1.  This  clay,  judging  from  other  localities,  is  notinsitu,  but  has 
every  appearance  of  having  been  precipitated  into  a  basin  in  the  gneiss  on 
which  it  rests,  having  apparently  under  it,  although  it  is  impossible  to  say 
to  what  extent,  a  bed  of  comminuted  shells.  2.  The  fossils  are  all  frag- 
mentary and  water-worn.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  regard  to  the 
Belemnitcs,  the  pieces  averaging  from  one  to  two  inches  in  length,  no 
workman  having  ever  found  a  complete  specimen,  such  as  occurs  in  the 
Lias-shale  at  Cromarty,  in  which  they  may  be  found  nine  inches  in  length. 
3.  But  perhaps  the  most  satisfactory  proof,  and  one  that  in  itself  may  be 
deemed  sufficient,  is  the  frequent  occurrence  of  pieces  of  Lias-shale,  with 
their  embedded  Ammonites;  which  clearly  show  that  the  Lias  had  been 
broken  up,  tossed  about  in  some  violent  agitation  of  the  sea,  and  churned 
into  clay,  just  as  some  denudating  process  of  a  similar  nature  swept  away 
the  chalk  of  Aberdeenshirc,  leaving  on  many  of  its  hills  and  plains  the 
water-worn  flints,  with  the  characteristic  fossils  of  the  Cretaceous  forma- 
tion." 


288  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

ship-carpenter  on  his  launch-slips,  to  facilitate  the  progress 
of  his  vessel  seawards,  is  not  more  treacherous  to  the  tread: 
while  the  Upper  Liasic  deposit  which  rests  over  it  is  com- 
posed of  a  dark  slaty  shale,  largely  charged  with  bitumen. 
And  of  a  Liasic  deposit  of  this  compound  character,  con- 
sisting in  larger  part  of  an  inferior  argillaceous  bed,  and  in 
lesser  part  of  a  superior  one  of  dark  shale,  the  tile-clay  of 
Blackpots  has  been  formed. 

I  had  next  to  determine  whether  aught  remained  to 
indicate  the  period  of  its  re-formation.  The  tile-works  at 
the  point  of  the  promontory  rest  on  a  bed  of  shell-sand, 
composed  exclusively,  like  the  sand  so  abundant  on  the 
western  coast  of  Scotland,  of  fragments  of  existing  shells. 
These,  however,  are  so  fresh  and  firm,  that,  though  the 
stratum  which  they  form  seems  to  underlie  the  clay  at  its 
edges,  I  cannot  regard  them  as  older  than  the  most  mod- 
ern of  our  ancient  sea-margins.  They  formed,  in  all  pro- 
bability, in  the  days  of  the  old  coast  line,  a  white  shelly 
beach,  under  such  a  precipitous  front  of  the  dark  clay  as 
argillaceous  deposits  almost  always  present  to  the  under- 
mining wear  of  the  waves.  On  the  recession  of  the  sea, 
however,  to  its  present  line,  the  abrupt,  steep  front,  loos- 
ened by  the  frosts  and  washed  by  the  rains,  would  of 
course  gradually  moulder  down  over  them  into  a  slope ; 
and  there  would  thus  be  communicated  to  the  shelly 
stratum,  at  least  at  its  edges,  an  imderlying  character. 
The  true  period  of  the  re-formation  of  the  deposit  was,  I 
can  have  no  doubt,  that  of  the  boulder-clay.  I  observed 
that  the  septaria  and  larger  masses  of  shale  which  the  bed 
contains,  bear,  on  roughly-polished  surfaces,  in  the  line  of 
their  larger  axes,  the  mysterious  groovings  and  scratch- 
ings  of  this  period, — marks  which  I  have  never  yet  known 
to  fail  in  their  chronological  evidence.  It  may  be  men- 
tioned, too,  simply  as  a  fact,  though  one  of  less  value  than 


RAMBLES    OP    A    GEOLOGIST.  289 

the  other,  that  the  deposit  occurs  in  its  larger  develop- 
ment exactly  where,  in  the  average,  the  boulder-clays  also 
are  most  largely  developed,  —  a  little-  over  that  line  where 
the  waves  for  so  many  ages  charged  against  the  coast,  ere 
the  last  upheaval  of  the  land  or  the  recession  of  the  sea 
sent  them  back  to  their  present  margin.  There  had  pro- 
bably existed  to  the  west  or  north-west  of  the  deposit, 
perhaps  in  the  middle  of  the  open  bay  formed  by  the  pro- 
montory on  which  it  rests,  —  for  the  small  proportion  of 
other  than  Liasic  materials  which  it  contains  serves  to 
shoAV  that  it  could  be  derived  from  no  great  distance,  — 
an  outlier  of  the  Lower  Lias.  The  icebergs  of  the  cold 
glacial  period,  propelled  along  the  submerged  land  by 
some  arctic  current,  or  caught  up  by  the  gulf-stream,  grad- 
ually grated  it  down,  as  a  mason's  laborer  grates  down  the 
surface  of  the  sandstone  slab  which  he  is  engaged  in  pol- 
ishing; and  the  comminuted  debris,  borne  eastwards  by 
the  current,  was  cast  down  here.  It  has  been  stated  that 
no  Liasic  remains  have  been  found  in  the  boulder-clays  of 
Scotland.  They  are  certainly  rare  in  the  boulder-clays  of 
the  northern  shores  of  the  Moray  Frith;  for  there  the 
nearest  Lias,  bearing  in  a  western  direction  from  the  clay, . 
is  that  of  Applecross,  on  the  other  side  of  the  island ;  and 
the  materials  of  the  boulder-deposits  of  the  north  have 
invariably  been  derived  in  the  line,  westerly  in  its  general 
bearing,  of  the  grooves  and  scratches  of  the  iceberg  era. 
But  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  frith,  where  that  west- 
erly line  passed  athwart  the  Liasic  beds  of  our  eastern 
coast,  organisms  of  the  Lias  are  comparatively  common  in 
the  boulder-clays;  and  here,  at  Blackpots,  we  find  an 
extensive  deposit  of  the  same  period  formed  of  Liasic 
materials  almost  exclusively.  Fragments  of  still  more 
modern  rocks  occur  in  the  boulder-clays  of  Caithness. 
My  friend  Mr.  Robert  Dick,  of  Thurso,  to  whose  perscver- 

25 


290  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

ing  labors  and  interesting  discoveries  in  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  of  his  locality  I  have  had  frequent  occasion  to 
refer,  has  detected  in  a  blue  boulder-clay,  scooped  into 
precipitous  banks  by  the  river  Thorsa,  fragments  both  of 
chalk-flints  and  a  characteristic  conglomerate  of  the  Oolite. 
He  has,  besides,  found  it  mottled  from  top  to  bottom,  a 
full  hundred  feet  over  the  sea-level,  and  about  two  miles 
inland,  with  comminuted  fragments  of  existing  shells. 
But  of  this  more  anon. 


CHAPTER    III. 

From  Blackpots  to  Portsoy  —  Character  of  the  Coast  — Burn  of  Boyne— Fever 
Phantoms  —  Graphic  Granite — Maupertuis  and  the  Runic  Inscription  —  Ex- 
planation of  the  quo  modo  of  Graphic  Granite  —  Portsoy  Inn  —  Serpentine 
Beds  —  Portsoy  Serpentine  unrivalled  for  small  ornaments  —  Description  of 
it —  Significance  of  the  term  serpentine  —  Elizabeth  Bond  and  her  "  Letters  '' — 
From  Portsoy  to  Cullen  —  Attritive  Power  of  the  Ocean  illustrated— The 
Equinoctial  —From  Cullen  to  Fochabers  —  The  Old  Red  again  — The  old  Pen- 
sioner—  Fochabers  —  Mr.  Joss,  the  learned  Mail-guard  —  The  Editor  a  sort  of 
Coach-guard  — On  the  Coach  to  Elgin  — Geology  of  Banffshire  —  Irregular  pag- 
ing of  the  Geologic  Leaves — Geologic  Map  of  the  County  like  Joseph's  Coat  — 
Striking  Illustration. 

I  PARTED  from  Dr.  Emslie,  and  walked  on  along  the 
shore  to  Portsoy,  —  for  three-fourths  of  the  way  over  the 
prevailing  grauwacke  of  the  county,  and  for  the  remain- 
ing fourth  over  mica  schist,  primary  limestone,  hornblende 
slate,  granitic  and  quartz  veins,  and  the  various  other 
kindred  rocks  of  a  primary  distiict.  The  day  was  still 
gloomy  and  gray,  and  ill  suited  to  improve  homely  scen- 
ery ;  nor  is  this  portion  of  the  Banff  coast  nearly  so  strik- 
ing as  that  which  I  had  travelled  over  the  day  before.  It 
has,  however,  its  spots  of  a  redeeming  character,  • —  rocky 
recesses  on  the  shore,  half-beach,  half-sward,  rich  in  wild- 
flowers  and  shells,  —  where  one  could  saunter  in  a  calm 
sunny  morning,  with  one's  bairns  about  one,  very  delight- 
fully ;  and  the  interior  is  here  and  there  agreeably  undu- 
lated by  diluvial  hillocks,  that,  when  the  sun  falls  low  in 
the  evening,  must  chequer  the  landscape  with  many  a 
pleasing  alternation  of  light  and  shadow.  The  Burn  of 
Boyne,  —  which  separates,  about  two  miles  from  Portsoy, 
a  grauwacke  from  a  mica-schist  district,  —  with  its  bare, 


292  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

open  valley,  its  steep  limestone  banks,  and  its  gray,  melan- 
choly castle,  long  since  roofless  and  windowless,  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  few  stunted  trees,  bears  a  deserted  and  soli- 
tary shagginess  about  it,  that  struck  me  as  wildly  agreea- 
ble. It  is  such  a  valley  as  one  might  expect  to  meet  a 
ghost  in,  in  some  still,  dewy  evening,  as  gloamiu  was 
darkening  into  uncertainty  the  outlines  of  the  ancient 
ruin,  and  the  newly-kindled  stars  looked  down  upon  the 
stream. 

It  so  happened,  however,  that  my  only  story  connected 
with  either  ruin  or  valley  was  as  little  a  ghost  story  as 
might  be.  I  remember  that,  when  lying  ill  of  fever  on 
one  occasion,  —  indisposed  enough  to  see  apparition  after 
apparition  flitting  across  the  bed-curtains,  like  the  figures 
of  a  magic  lantern  posting  along  the  darkened  wall,  and 
yet  self-possessed  enough  to  know  that  they  were  but 
mere  pictures  in  the  eye,  and  to  watch  them  as  they  rose, 
—  I  set  myself  to  determine  whether  they  were  in  any 
degree  amenable  to  the  will,  or  connected  by  the  ordinary 
associative  links  of  the  metaphysician.  Fixing  my  mind 
on  a  certain  object,  I  strove  to  call  it  up  in  the  character, 
not  of  an  image  of  the  conceptive  faculty,  but  of  a  fever- 
vision  on  the  retina.  The  image  which  I  pictured  to 
myself  was  that  of  a  death's  head,  yellow  and  grim,  and 
lighted  up,  as  if  from  within,  amid  the  darkness  of  a  burial 
vault.  But  the  death's  head  obstinately  refused  to  rise. 
I  had  no  control,  I  found,  over  the  fever  imagery.  And 
the  picture  that  rose  instead,  uncalled  and  unexpected, 
was  that  of  a  coal-fire  burning  brightly  in  a  grate,  with  a 
huge  tea-kettle  steaming  cheerily  over  it. 

In  traversing  the  bare  height  which,  rising  on  the  west- 
ern side  of  the  valley  of  the  Boyne,  owes  its  comparatively 
bold  relief  in  the  landscape  to  the  firmness  of  the  primary 
rock  which  composes  it,  I  picked  up  a  piece  of  graphic 


KAMBLES   OP  A    GEOLOGIST.  293 

granite,  bearing  its  inlaid  characters  of  dark  quartz  on  a 
ground  of  cream-colored  feldspar.     This  variety,  however, 
though  occasionally  found  in  rolled  boulders  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Portsoy,  is  not  the  graphic  granite  for  which 
the  locality  is  famous,  and  which  occurs  in  a  vein  in  the 
mica  schist  of  the  eminence  I  was  now  traversing,  about  a 
mile  to  the  east  of  the  town.     The  prevailing  ground  of 
the  granite  of  the  vein  is  a  flesh-colored  feldspar ;  and  the 
thickly-marked  quartzose  characters  with  which  it  is  set, 
greatly  smaller  and  paler  than  in  the  cream-colored  stone, 
bear  less   the   antique   Hebraic  look,  and  would   scarce 
deceive  even  the  most  credulous  antiquary.    Antiquarians, 
however,  have  been  sometimes  deceived  by  weathered  spe- 
cimens of  this  graphic  rock,  in  which  the  characters  were 
of  considerable  size,  and  restricted  to  thin  veins,  covering 
the  surface  of  a  schistose  groundwork.     Maupertuis,  dur- 
ing his  famous  journey  to  Lapland,  undertaken  in  1737,  to 
establish,  from  actual  measurement,  that  the  degrees  of 
latitude  are  longer  towards  the  pole  than  at  the  equator, 
and  which  demonstrated,  of  consequence,  the  true  figure 
of  the   earth,  travelled   thirty  leagues   out    of   his  way, 
through  a  wild  country  covered  with  snow,  to  examine  an 
ancient  monument,  of  which,  he  says,  "the  Fins  and  Lap- 
landers frequently  spoke,  as  containing  in  its  inscription 
the  knowledge  of  everything  of  which  they  were  igno- 
rant."    He  found  it  on  the  side  of  a  mountain,  buried  in 
snow ;  and  ascertained,  after  kindling  a  great  fire  around 
it,  in  order  to  lay  it  bare,  that  it  was  a  stone  of  irregular 
form,  composed  of  various  layers  of  unequal  hardness,  and 
that  the  characters,  which  were  rather  more  than  an  inch 
in,  length,  were  written  on  "  a  layer  of  a  species  of  flint," 
chiefly  in  two  lines,  with  a  few  scattered  signs  beneath, 
while  the  rest  of  the  mass  was  composed  of  a  rock  more 
soft  and  foliated.     Graphic  granite,  it  may  be  mentioned, 
25* 


294  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

generally  occurs,  not  in  masses,  but  in  veins  and  layers. 
The  inscription  had  been  described  in  a  previously  pub- 
lished dissertation  of  immense  erudition,  as  Runic ;  but  a 
Runic  scholar  of  the  party  found  he  could  make  nothing 
of  it.  The  philosopher  himself  was  struck  by  the  frequent 
repetition  of  characters  of  nearly  the  same  form  on  the 
stone ;  but  he  was  ingenious  enough  to  get  over  the  diffi- 
culty, by  remembering  that  in  our  notation,  after  the  Ara- 
bic manner,  characters  shaped  exactly  alike  may  be  very 
frequently  repeated,  —  nay,  as  in  some  of  the  lines  of  the 
Lapland  inscription,  may  succeed  each  other,  as  in  the 
sums  I.  II.  in.  IIII.  or  X.  XX.  XXX.,  — and  yet  very 
distinct  and  definite  ideas  attach  to  them  all.  Still,  how- 
ever, he  could  not,  he  says,  venture  on  authoritatively 
deciding  whether  the  inscription  was  a  work  of  man  or  a 
sport  of  nature.  He  stood  between  his  two  conclusions, 
like  our  Edinburgh  antiquarians  between  the  two  fossil 
Maries  of  Gueldres ;  and,  richer  in  eloquence  than  most  of 
the  philosophers  his  contemporaries,  was  quite  prepared, 
in  his  uncertainty,  to  give  gilded  mounting  and  a  purple 
pall  to  both. 

"  Should  it  be  no  other  than  a  sport  of  nature,"  he  con- 
cludes, "the  reputation  which  the  stone  bears  in  this 
country  deserves  that  we  should  have  given  a  description 
of  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  what  is  on  it  be  an  inscription, 
though  it  certainly  does  not  possess  the  beauty  of  the  sculp- 
ture of  Greece  or  Rome,  it  very  possibly  has  the  advantage 
of  being  the  oldest  in  the  universe.  The  country  in  which 
it  is  found  is  inhabited  only  by  a  race  of  men  who  live  like 
beasts  in  the  forests.  We  cannot  imagine  that  they  can 
have  ever  had  any  memorable  event  to  transmit  to  posterity, 
nor,  if  ever  they  had  had,  that  they  coiikl  have  invented  the 
means.  Nor  can  it  be  conceived  that  this  country,  with  its 
present  aspect,  ever  possessed  more  civilized  inhabitants. 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  295 

The  rigor  of  the  climate  and  the  barrenness  of  the  land  have 
destined  it  for  the  retreat  of  a  few  miserable  wretches,  who 
know  no  other.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  the  inscription 
must  have  been  cut  •  at  a  period  when  the  country  was 
situated  in  a  different  climate,  and  before  some  one  of  those 
great  revolutions  which,  we  cannot  doubt,  have  taken  place 
on  our  globe.  The  position  that  the  earth's  axis  holds  at 
present  with  respect  to  the  ecliptic,  occasions  Lapland  to 
receive  the  sun's  rays  very  obliquely :  it  is  therefore  con- 
demned to  a  long  winter,  adverse  to  man,  as  well  as  to  all 
the  productions  of  nature.  No  great  movement,  possibly, 
in  the  heavens  was  necessary,  however,  to  cause  all  its  mis- 
fortunes. These  regions  may  formerly  have  been  those  on 
which  the  sun  shone  most  favorably  ;  the  polar  circles  may 
have  been  what  now  the  tropics  are,  and  the  torrid  zone 
have  filled  the  place  occupied  by  the  temperate."  Pretty 
well,  Monsieur,  for  a  philosopher!  The  various  attempts 
made  to  unriddle  the  real  history  of  graphic  granite  are, 
however,  scarce  less  curious  than  the  speculations  connected 
with  what  may  be  termed  its  romance.  It  seems  to  be  gen- 
erally held,  since  the  days  of  old  Hutton,  who,  in  his 
"  Theory  of  the  Earth,"  discussed  the  subject  with  his  usual 
ingenuity,  that  the  feldspathic  basis  of  the  stone  first  crys- 
tallized, leaving  interstices  between  the  crystals,  partaking 
of  a  certain  regularity  of  form,  —  a  consequence  of  the  regu- 
larity of  the  crystals  themselves,  —  and  of  a  certain  irregu- 
larity from  the  eccentric  dispositions  which  these  manifest 
in  their  position  and  relations  to  each  other ;  and  that  these 
interstices,  being  afterwards  filled  up  with  quartz,  form  the 
characters  of  the  rock,  —  characters  partaking  enough  of 
the  first  element  of  regularity  to  present  their  peculiar 
graphic  appearance,  and  enough  of  the  second  element  of 
irregularity  to  exhibit  forms  of  an  alphabet-like  variety  of 
cmtline.  The  chemist,  however,  in  cross-questioning  the 


296  RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

explanation,  lias  his  puzzle  to  propound  regarding  it. 
Quartz,  he  says,  being  considerably  less  fusible  than  feld- 
spar, would  naturally  consolidate  first,  and  so  would  give 
form  to  the  more  fusible  substance,  instead  of  deriving  form 
from  it.  On  what  principle,  then,  is  it  that,  reversing  its 
ordinary  character,  it  should  have  been  the  last  of  the  two 
substances  to  consolidate  in  the  graphic  granite? — a  query 
to  which  there  seems  to  be  no  direct  reply,  but  which  as; 
little  affects  the  fact  that  it  was  the  substance  which  last 
consolidated,  and  which  took  form  from  the  other,  as  the 
decision  of  the  learned  Strasburgers,  which  determined  the 
impossibility  of  the  long  nose  in  Slawkenbergius's  Tale, 
affected  the  actual  existence  of  that  remarkable  feature. 
"  It  happens  to  be,  notwithstanding  your  objection,"  said 
the  controversialists  on  the  pro-nose  side  of  the  question. 
"  But  it  ought  not,"  replied  their  opponents. 

The  rain  again  returned  as  I  was  engaged  in  examining 

o  o    o  o 

the  graphic  granite  of  the  Portsoy  vein ;  the  breeze  from 
the  sea  heightened  into  a  gale,  that  soon  fringed  the  coast 
with  a  broad  border  of  foam;  and  I  entered  the  town,  which 
looked  but  indifferently  well  in  its  gray  dishabille  of  haze 
and  spray,  tolerably  wet  and  worn,  writh  but  the  prospect 
before  me  of  being  weather-bound  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 
I  found  an  old-fashioned  inn,  kept  by  somewhat  old-fashioned 
people,  who  had  lately  come  from  the  country  to  "  open  a 
public ;"  and  ensconced  myself  by  the  fireside,  in  a  huge 
many-windowed  room,  that  must  have  witnessed  the  county 
dinners  of  at  least  a  century  ago.  Soon  wearying,  however, 
of  hearing  the  rain  beating  mad-like  ratans  upon  the  panes, 
and  availing  myself  of  a  comparatively  "  lucid  interval,"  I 
sallied  out,  wrapped  up  in  my  plaid,  to  examine  the  ser- 
pentine beds  in  the  neighborhood,  which  produce  what  is  so 
extensively  known  as  the  Portsoy  marble.  The  beds  or 
veins  of  this  substance,  —  for  it  is  still  a  moot  point  whether 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  297 

they  occur  here  as  mere  insulated  masses  of  contemporary 
origin  with  the  primary  formations  which  surround  them, 
or  as  Plutonic  dykes  injected  into  fissures  at  a  later  period, 
—  are  of  very  considerable  extent,  one  of  them  measuring 
about  twenty-five  yards  across,  and  another  considerably 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile ;  and,  had  they  but  the 
solidity  of  the  true  marbles,  they  would  scarce  fail  to  be 
regarded  as  valuable  quarries  of  a  highly  ornamental  stone, 
admirably  suited  for  the  interior  decorations  of  the  architect. 
But  they  are  unluckily  what  the  quarrier  would  term  rub- 
bly,  —  traversed  by  an  infinity  of  cracks  and  fissures ;  and 
it  is  rare  indeed  to  find  a  continuous  mass  out  of  which  a 
chimney-jamb  or  lintel  could  be  fashioned.  The  serpentine 
was  wrought  here  considerably  more  than  a  century  and  a 
half  ago,  and  exported  to  France  for  the  magnificent  Palace 
of  Versailles ;  which,  though  regarded  by  the  French  na- 
tion, says  Voltaire,  as  "a  favorite  without  merit,"  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  persisted  at  the  time  in  lavishly  beautifying,  and 
looked  as  far  abroad  as  Portsoy  for  materials  with  which  to 
adom  it.  I  have,  however,  seen  it  stated  that  the  greater 
part  of  a  ship's  cargo,  brought  afterwards  to  Paris  on  specu- 
lation, was  suffered  to  lie  unwrought  for  years  in  the  stone- 
dealer's  yard,  and  was  ultimately  disposed  of  as  rubbish,  — 
a  consequence,  probably,  of  its  unfitness,  from  its  shaky 
texture,  for  ornamental  purposes  on  a  large  scale,  though 
for  ornaments  of  the  smaller  kind,  such  as  boxes,  vases,  and 
plates,  it  has  been  pronounced  unrivalled.  "At  Zoblitz,  in 
Upper  Saxony,"  says  Professor  Jamieson,  "  several  hundred 
people  are  employed  in  quarrying,  cutting,  turning,  and  pol- 
ishing the  serpentine  which  occurs  in  that  -neighborhood ; 
and  the  various  articles  into  which  it  is  manufactured  are 
carried  all  over  Germany.  The  serpentine  of  Portsoy,"  he 
adds,  "  is,  however,  far  superior  to  that  of  Zoblitz,  in  color, 
hardness,  and  transparency,  and,  when  cut,  is  very  beautiful." 


298  KAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

It  is  really  a  pretty  stone ;  and,  bad  as  the  evening  was, 
it  was  by  no  means  one  of  the  worst  of  evenings  for  seeing 
it  to  advantage  in  situ,  or  among  the  rolled  pebbles  on  the 
shore.  The  varnish-like  gloss  of  the  wet  impaired  to  the 
undressed  masses  all  the  effect  of  polish,  and  brought  out  in 
their  proper  variegations  of  color,  every  cloud,  streak,  and 
vein.  Viewed  in  the  mass,  the  general  hue  is  green ;  so 
much  so,  that  an  insulated  stack,  which  stands  abreast  of 
one  of  the  beds,  a  stone-cast  in  the  sea,  has  greatly  the  ap- 
pearance, at  a  little  distance,  of  an  immense  mass  of  verdigris. 
But  red,  gray,  and  brown  are  also  prevailing  colors  in  the 
rock  ;  occasional  veins  and  blotches  of  white  give  lightness 
to  the  darker  portions ;  and  veins  of  hematitic  and  deep 
umbry  tints,  variety  to  the  portions  that  are  lighter.  The 
greens  vary  from  the  palest  olive  to  the  deepest  black- 
green  of  the  mineralogist ;  the  reds  and  browns,  from  blood- 
red  to  dark  chocolate,  and  from  wood-brown  to  brownish- 
black  ;  and,  thus  various  in  shade,  they  occur  in  almost 
every  possible  variety  of  combination  and  form,  —  dotted, 
spotted,  clouded,  veined,  —  so  that  each  separate  pebble  on 
the  shore  seems  the  representative  of  a  rock  different  from 
the  rocks  represented  by  almost  all  the  others.  Though  not 
much  of  a  mineralogist,  I  could  have  spent  considerably 
more  time  than  the  weather  permitted  me  to  employ  this 
evening,  in  admiring  the  beauties  of  this  beach  of  marbles, 
or  rather,  —  as  the  real  name,  derived  from  those  gorgeous, 
many-colored  cloudings,  that  impart  a  terrible  splendor  to 
the  skins  of  the  snake  and  viper  family,  is  not  only  the  more 
correct,  but  also  the  more  poetical  of  the  two,  —  this  beach 
of  serpentines.  I  had,  however,  to  compromise  matters  be- 
tween the  fierce  wind  and  rain  and  the  pretty  rocks  and 
pebbles,  by  adjourning  to  the  workshop  of  the  Portsoy 
lapidary,  Mr.  Clark,  and  examining  under  cover  his  polished 
specimens,  of  which  I  purchased  for  a  few  shillings  a  charac- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  299 

/ 

teristic  and  elegant  little  set.  Portsoy  is  peculiarly  rich  in 
minerals ;  and  hence  it  reckons  among  its  mechanics  of  the 
ordinary  class,  what  perhaps  no  other  village  in  Scotland  of 
the  same  size  and  population  possesses,  —  a  skilful  lapidary. 
Mr.  Clark's  collection  of  the  graphic  granites,  serpentines, 
and  talcose  and  mica  schists,  of  the  district,  with  their  asso- 
ciated minerals,  such  as  schorl,  talc,  asbestos,  amianthus, 
mountain  cork,  steatite,  and  schiller  spar,  will  be  found  ; 
eminently  worthy  a  visit  by  the  passing  traveller. 

I  made  several  inquiries  in  the  village,  though  not,  as  it 
proved,  in  the  right  direction,  regarding  a  poor  old  lady, 
several  years  dead,  of  whom  I  had  known  a  very  little 
considerably  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  before,  and 
Avhose  grave  I  would  have  visited,  bad  as  the  night  was, 
had  I  met  any  one  who  could  have  pointed  it  out  to  me. 
But  ungrateful  Portsoy  seemed  to  have  forgotten  poor 
Miss  Bond,  who,  in  all  her  printed  letters  and  little  stories, 
so  rarely  forgot  it.  Have  any  of  my  readers  ever  seen 
the  work  (in  two  slim  volumes),  "Letters  of  a  Village 
Governess,"  published  in  1814  by  Elizabeth  Bond,  and 
dedicated  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  ?  If  not,  and  should  they 
chance  to  see,  as  I  lately  did,  a  copy  on  a  stall  (with  uncut 
leaves,  alas !  and  selling  dog  cheap),  they  might  possibly 
do  worse  things  than  buy  it.* 

With  better  weather  I  could  have  spent  a  day  or  two 
very  agreeably  in  Portsoy  and  its  neighborhood ;  but  the 
rain  dashed  unceasingly,  and  made  exploration  under  the 
cover  of  the  umbrella  somewhat  resemble  that  of  a  sea- 
bottom  under  cover  of  the  diving-bell.  I  could  see  but 
little  at  a  time,  and  the  little  imperfectly.  Miss  Bond,  in 
her  "  Letters,"  refers,  in  her  light,  pleasing  style,  to  what 


*  A  description  of  Miss  Bond  and  of  her  "  Letters  "  here  referred  to, 
is  given  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  "  My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters." 


300  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

in  more  favorable  circumstances  might  be  seen.  "  My 
troop  of  light  infantry?  she  says,  "  keeps  me  so  well  em- 
ployed here  during  the  day,  that  the  silence  and  repose  of 
the  evening  is  very  delightful.  In  fine  weather  I  walk  by 
the  sea-side,  and  scramble  among  the  rugged  rocks,  many 
of  which  are  inaccessible  to  human  feet,  forming  a  fine 
retreat  for  foxes.  These  animals  often  may  be  seen  from 
the  heights,  sporting  with  their  cubs  in  perfect  safety. 
This  day  I  went  to  see  the  works  of  an  old  virtuoso,  who 
turns  in  marble,  or  rather  granite  [serpentine]  all  kinds  of 
chimney-piece  ornaments,  rings,  ear-rings,  etc.  Several 
specimens  of  his  work,  which  must  have  cost  him  a  vast 
deal  of  trouble,  I  thought  very  beautiful.  It  was  in  this 
neighborhood  that  the  celebrated  Ferguson  spent  so  much 
of  his  time.  The  globular  stones  on  the  gate  of  Durn 
are  still  to  be  seen,  on  which  he  mapped  out  the  figuring 
of  the  terrestrial  and  celestial  globes.  I  was  told  it  was 
forbidden  ground  to  approach  the  premises  of  Durn  ;  but 
I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  visiting  the  spot 
where  the  young  philosopher  had  shown  such  early  proofs 
of  his  genius ;  and  I  accordingly  paid  the  forfeit  of  an 
impertinent,  for  the  gentleman  who  resides  there  caught 
the  prowler,  and  in  genteel  terms  bade  her  go  about  her 
business,  and  never  return.  How  ungracious!  She  was 
doing  no  harm." 

The  morning  arose  as  gloomily  as  the  evening  had  fal- 
len ;  and  I  walked  on  in  the  rain  to  Cullen,  fully  disposed 
to  sympathize  by  the  way  with  the  "hardy  Byron,"  —  lie 
of  the  "Narrative,"  —  who,  from  his  ill-luck  in  weather, 
went  among  his  sailors  by  the  name  of  "  Foul-weather 
Jack."  In  the  sandy  bay  of  Cullen,  where  the  road,  after 
inflecting  inland  for  some  five  or  six  miles,  comes  again 
upon  the  sea,  I  found  the  surf  charging  home  in  long 
white  lines  six  waves  deep, — 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  301 

"  Each  stepping  where  his  comrade  stood, 
The  instant  that  he  fell." 

The  appearance  was  such  as  to  impart  no  inadequate  idea 
of  the  vast  attritive  power  of  ocean  in  wearing  down  the 
land.  When  pausing  for  a  little  abreast  of  the  fishing 
village,  partially  sheltered  by  an  old  boat,  to  mark  the 
fierce  turmoil,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me,  —  as  the  tem- 
pest weltered  around  reef  and  skerry,  and  roared  wildly, 
mile  after  mile,  along  the  beach,  —  that  the  day  and  night 
were  now  just  equal,  and  that  it  was  the  customary  equi- 
noctial storm  that  had  broken  out  to  accompany  me  on  my 
journey.  And  so,  calculating  on  a  few  days  more  of  it, 
instead  of  waiting  on  in  the  hope  of  a  fair  afternoon  to 
examine  the  outlier  of  Old  Red  which  occurs  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Cullen,  I  was  content  to  see  at  a  distance  its 
mural-sided  clifis  rising  like  broken  walls  through  the 
flat  sand;  and,  taking  the  road  for  Fochabers,  with  the 
intention  of  leaving  exploration  till  fairer  weather  set  in, 
I  resolved  on  posting  straight  on,  to  join  my  relatives  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  Frith.  The  deep-red  color  of  the 
boulder-clay,  as  exhibited  by  the  wayside,  in  the  water- 
courses and  the  water,  —  for  every  runnel  was  tumbling 
down  big  and  turbid  with  the  rains, — intimated,  when, 
after  leaving  Cullen  some  six  or  seven  miles  behind  me,  I 
passed  from  a  bare  moory  region  of  quartz  rock  into  a 
region  of  woods  and  fields,  that  I  was  again  upon  my 
ancient  acquaintance,  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  And  the 
section  furnished  by  the  Burn  of  Tynet  showed  me  shortly 
after  that  the  intimation  was  a  correct  one,  and  how  gen- 
erally it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  rule,  that  at  least  the  more 
impalpable  portions  of  the  boulder-clay  are  derived  from 
the  rocks  on  which  it  rests.  The  ichthyolite  beds  appear 
in  the  course  of  the  burn.  They  have  furnished  several 
good  specimens,  —  among  the  others,  the  specimen  of 
26 


302  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

Coccosteus  figured  by  Mr.  Patrick  Duff  in  his  "  Sketches 
of  the  Geology  of  Moray ; "  and  they  are,  besides,  curious, 
as  being  the  first  to  exhibit  to  the  traveller  who  explores 
from  Gamrie  westwards,  that  peculiar  style  of  coloring 
which  characterizes  the  Old  Red  ichthyolites  of  the  shires 
of  Moray  and  Nairn,  and  which  differs  so  strikingly  from 
the  more  sombre  style  exhibited  by  the  other  ichthyolites 
of  Banffshire,  with  those  of  Cromarty,  Ross,  Caithness, 
and  Orkney.  Instead  of  bearing,  like  these,  one  uniform 
hue,  as  if  deeply  shaded  with  Indian  ink,  they  are  gor- 
geously attired,  especially  when  newly  laid  open,  in  white, 
red,  purple,  and  blue.  The.  day,  however,  was  ill-suited 
for  fishing  Pterichthyes  and  Osteolepi  out  of  the  Tynet : 
the  red  water  was  roaring  from  bank  to  brae ;  here  eddy- 
ing along  the  half-submerged  furze,  —  there  tearing  down 
the  boulder-clays  in  raw,  red  land-slips;  and  so,  casting 
but  one  eager  glance  at  the  bed  where  the  fish  lay,  I 
travelled  on,  and  entered  the  tall  woods  to  the  east  of 
Fochabers.  The  rain  ceased  for  a  time  ;  and  I  met  in  the 
woods  an  old  pensioner,  who  had  been  evidently  weather- 
bound in  some  public-house,  and  had  now  taken  the  oppor- 
tunity of  the  fair  interval  to  stagger  to  his  dwelling.  He 
was  eminently,  exuberantly  happy,  —  there  could  not  be 
two  opinions  on  that  head,  —  full  of  all  manner  of  bright 
sunshiny  thoughts  and  imaginations,  rendered  just  a  little 
tremulous  and  uncertain  by  the  summer-heat  exhalations 
of  the  imbibed  moisture,  like  distant  objects  in  a  hot  noon- 
day landscape  in  July  seen  through  volumes  of  rising 
vapor ;  and  a  sheep's  head  and  trotters,  which  he  carried 
under  his  arm,  was,  I  saw,  to  serve  as  a  peace-offering  to 
his  wife  at  home.  True,  he  had  been  taking  a  dram,  but 
he  was  mindful  of  the  family  for  all  that.  He  confronted 
me  with  the  air  of  an  old  acquaintance ;  gave  the  inilitary 
galute ;  and  then,  laying  hold  of  a  comer  of  my  plaid 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  303 

•with  his  thumb  and  fore-finger,  —  "I  know  you,"  he  said, 
"  I  know  your  kind  well ;  ye  're  a  Highland-Donald.  Od, 
I  Ve  seen  ye  in  the  thick  o't.  Ye  're  reuyh  fellows  when 
ye  're  bluid  's  up ! "  He  had  taken  me  for  a  grenadier  of 
the  42d ;  and  I  lacked  the  moral  courage  to  undeceive 
him.  I  met  nothing  further  on  my  way  worthy  of  record, 
save  and  except  a  sheep's  trotter,  dropped  by  the  old  pen- 
sioner in  one  of  his  zig-zaggings  to  the  extreme  left ;  but 
having  no  particular  use  for  the  trotter  at  the  time  and  in 
the  circumstances,  I  left  it  to  benefit  the  next  passer-by. 
I  finished  my  journey  of  eighteen  miles  in  capital  style, 
and  was  within  five  minutes'  walk  of  Fochabers  when  the 
horn  of  the  mail-guard  was  sounding  up  the  street.  And, 
entering  the  village,  I  found  the  vehicle  standing  opposite 
the  inn  door,  minus  the  horses. 

The  insides  and  outsides  were  sitting  down  to  dinner 
together  as  I  entered  the  inn ;  and  I  felt,  after  my  long 
walk,  that  it  would  be  rather  an  agreeable  matter  to  join  with 
them.  But  in  the  hope  of  meeting  my  old  friend  Mr.  Joss, 
I  requested  .to  be  shown,  not  into  the  passengers'  room, 
but  into  that  of  the  coachman  and  guard ;  and  with  them 
I  dined.  It  so  chanced,  however,  that  Mr.  Joss  was  not 
out  that  day;  and  the  man  in  the  red  long  coat  was  a 
stranger  whom  I  had  never  seen  before.  I  inquired  of 
him  regarding  Mr.  Joss, — one  of  perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able mail-guards  in  Europe.  I  have  at  least  never  heard 
of  another  who,  like  him,  amuses  his  leisure  on  the  coach- 
top  with  the  "  Principia  "  of  Newton,  and  understands  it. 
And  the  man,  drawing  his  inference  from  the  interest  in 
Mr.  Joss  which  my  queries  evinced,  asked  me  whether  I 
myself  was  not  a  coach-guard.  "  No,"  I  rather  thought- 
lessly replied,  "  I  am  not  a  coach-guard."  Half  a  minute's 
consideration,  however,  led  me  to  doubt  whether  I  had 
given  the  right  answer.  "  I  am  not  sure,"  I  said  to  myself, 


304  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

on  second  thoughts,  "  hut  the  man  has  cut  pretty  fairly  on 
the  point ;  —  I  daresay  lam  a  sort  of  coach-guard.  I  have 
to  mount  my  twice-a-week  coach  in  all  weathers,  like  any 
mail-guard  among  them  all ;  I  have  to  start  at  the  appointed 
hour,  whether  the  vehicle  be  empty  or  full ;  I  have  to  keep 
a  sharp  eye  on  the  opposition  coaches ;  I  am  responsible, 
like  any  other  mail-guard,  for  all  the  parcels  carried,  how- 
ever little  I  may  have  had  to  do  with  the  making  of  them 
up ;  I  have  always  to  keep  my  blunderbuss  full  charged  to 
the  muzzle,  —  not  wishing  harm  to  any  one,  but  bound  in 
duty  to  let  drive  at  all  and  sundry  who  would  make  Avar 
upon  the  passengers,  or  attempt  running  the  conveyance 
off  the  road ;  and,  finally,  as  my  friend  Mr.  Joss  takes  the 
"  Principia  "  to  his  coach-top,  I  take  pockets  full  of  fossils 
to  the  top  of  mine,  and  amuse  myself  in  fine  days  by  work- 
ing out,  as  I  best  can,  the  problems  which  they  furnish. 
Yes,  I  rather  think  I  am  a  coach-guard."  And  so,  taking 
my  seat  beside  my  red-coated  brother,  who  had  guessed 
the  true  nature  of  my  occupation  so  much  more  shrewdly 
than  myself,  I  rode  on  to  Elgin,  where  I  passed  the  night. 
It  is  difficult  to  arrange  in  the  mind  the  geologic  forma- 
tions of  Banffshire  in  their  character  as  a  series  of  deposits. 
The  pages  of  the  stony  record  which  the  county  composes, 
like  those  of  an  unskilfully-folded  pamphlet,  have  been 
strangely  mixed  together,  so  that  page  last  succeeds  in 
some  places  to  page  first,  and,  of  the  intermediate  pages, 
some  appear  at  the  beginning  of  the  work,  and  some  at 
the  end.  It  is  not  until  we  reach  the  western  confines  of 
the  county,  some  two  or  three  miles  short  of  the  river  Spey, 
its  terminal  boundary  in  this  direction,  that  we  find  the 
beds  comparatively  little  disturbed,  and  arranged  chrono- 
logically in  their  original  places.  In  the  eastern  and  south- 
ern parts  of  the  shire,  rocks  widely  separated  by  the  date 
of  their  formation  have  been  set  down  side  by  side  in 


RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST.  305 

patches,  occasionally  of  but  inconsiderable  extent.  Now 
the  travellei-  passes  over  a  district  of  grauwacke,  now  over 
a  re-formation  of  the  Lias ;  anon  he  finds  himself  on  a  pri- 
mary limestone,  —  gneiss,  syenite,  clay-slate,  or  quartz- 
rock  ;  and  yet  anon  amid  the  fossils  of  some  outlier  of  the 
Old  Red.  The  geological  map  of  the  county  is,  like 
Joseph's  coat,  of  many  colors.  I  remember  seeing,  when  a 
boy,  more  years  ago  than  I  am  inclined  to  specify,  some 
workmen  engaged  in  pulling  down  what  had  been  a  house- 
painter's  shop,  a  full  century  before.  The  painter  had  been 
in  the  somewhat  slovenly  habit  of  cleaning  his  brushes  by 
rubbing  them  against  a  hard-cast  wall,  which  was  covered, 
in  consequence,  by  a  many-colored  layer  of  paint,  a  full  half- 
inch  in  thickness,  and  as  hard  as  a  stone.  Taking  a  little 
bit  home  with  me,  I  polished  it  by  rubbing  the  upper  sur- 
face smooth;  and,  lo!  a  geological  map.  The  strata  of 
variously  hued  pigment,  spread  originally  over  the  surface 
of  the  hard-cast  wall,  were  cut  open,  by  the  denudation  of 
the  grindstone,  into  all  manner  of  fantastic  forms,  and 
seemed  thrown  into  all  sorts  of  strange  neighborhoods. 
The  map  lacked  merely  the  additional  perplexity  of  a  few 
\)O\<\.  faults,  with  here  and  there  a  decided  dike,  in  order 
to  render  it  on  a  small  scale  a  sort  of  miniature  transcript 
of  the  geology  of  Banff ;  and  I  have  very  frequently  found 
my  thoughts  reverting  to  it,  in  connection  with  deposits 
of  this  broken  character.  On  a  rough  hard-cast  basis  of 
granite  I  have  laid  down  in  imagination,  as  if  by  way  of 
priming,  coat  after  coat  of  the  primary  rocks,  —  gneiss,  and 
stratified  hornblend,  and  mica-schist,  and  quartz-rock,  and 
clay-slate ;  and  then,  after  breaking  the  coatings  well  up, 
and  rubbing  them  well  down,  and  so  spoiling  and  crump- 
ling up  the  work  as  to  make  their  original  order  consider- 
ably a  puzzle,  I  have  begun  anew  to  paint  over  the  rough 
surface  with  thick  coatings  of  grauwacke  and  grauwacke- 
26* 


306  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

slate.  When  this  part  of  the  operation  was  completed,  I 
have  again  begun  to  break  up  and  grind  down,  —  here 
letting  a  tract  of  grauwacke  sink  into  the  broken  primary, 

—  there  wearing  it  off  the   surface   altogether,  —  yonder 
elevating  the  original  granitic  hard-cast  till  it  rose  over  all 
the  coatings,  Primary  and  Paleozoic.     And  then  I  have 
begun  to  paint  yet  a  third  time  with  thick  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone pigment ;  and  yet  again  to  break  up  and  wear  down, 

—  here  to  insert  a  tenon  of  the  Old  Red  deep  into  a  mor- 
tise of  the  grauwacke,  as  at  Gamrie,  —  there  to  dovetail  it 
into  the  clay-slate,  as  at  Tomantoul,  —  yonder,  after  laying 
it  across  the  upturned  quartz-rock,  as  at  Cullen,  to  rub  by 
much  the  greater  part  of  it  away  again,  leaving  but  mere 
remainder-patches  and  fragments,  to  mark  where  it  had 
been.    Lastly,  if  I  had  none  of  the  superior  Palaeozoic  or 
Secondary  formations  to  deal  with,  I  have  brushed  over 
the  whole,  by  way  of  finish,  with   the   variously-derived 
coatings  of  the  superficial  deposits ;  and  thus,  as  I  have 
said,  I  have  often  completed,  in  idea,  after  the  chance  sug- 
gestion of  the  old  painter's  shop,  my  portable  models  of 
the  geology  of  disturbed  districts  like  the  Banffshire  one. 
The  deposits  of  Moray  are  greatly  less  broken.    Denuda- 
tion has  partially  worn  them  down ;  but  they  seem  to  have 
almost  wholly  escaped  the  previous  crumpling  process. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Yellow-hued  Houses  Of  Elgin  —  Geology  of  the  Country  indicated  by  the  coloring 
of  the  Stone  Houses — Fossils  of  Old  Red  north  of  the  Grampians  different 
from  those  of  Old  Red  south  —  Geologic  Formations  at  Linksfleld  difficult 
to  be  understood  —  Ganoid  Scales  of  the  Wealden  —  Sudden  Reaction,  from 
complex  to  simple,  in  the  Scales  of  Fishes  —  Pore-covered  Scales  —  Extraor- 
dinary amount  of  Design  exhibited  in  Ancient  Ganoid  Scales  —  Holopty- 
chius  Scale  illustrated  by  Cromwell's  "  fluted  pot  " —  Patrick  Duff's  Geological 
Collection  —  Elgin  Museum  —  Fishes  of  the  Ganges — Armature  of  Ancient 
Fishes  —  Compensatory  Defences  —  The  Hermit-crab  —  Spines  of  the  Pimelodi 

—  Ride  to  Campbelton — Theories  of  the  formation  of  Ardersier  and  Fortrose 
Promontories—  Tradition  of  their  construction  by  the  Wizard,  Michael  Scott 

—  A  Region  of  Legendary  Lore. 

THE  prevailing  yellow  hue  of  the  Elgin  houses  strikes  the 
eye  of  the  geologist  who  has  travelled  northwards  from  the 
Frith  of  Forth.  He  takes  leave  of  a  similar  stone  at  Cupar- 
Fife,  —  a  warmly-tinted  yellow  sandstone,  peculiarly  well- 
suited  for  giving  effect  to  architectural  ornament ;  and  after 
passing  along  the  deep-red  sandstone  houses  of  the  shires  of 
Angus  and  Kincardine,  and  the  gneiss,  granite,  hyperstene, 
and  mica-schist  houses  of  Aberdeen  and  Banff  shires,  he 
again  finds  houses  of  a  deep  red  on  crossing  the  Spey,  and 
houses  of  a  warm  yellow  tint  on  reaching  Elgin, — geologi- 
cally the  Cupar-Fife  of  the  north.  And  the  story  that 
the  colored  buildings  tell  him  is,  that  he  has  been  passing, 
though  by  a  somewhat  circuitous  route  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles,  over  an  anticlinal  geological  section, — 
down  in  the  scale  till  he  reached -Aberdeen  and  had  gone  a 
little  beyond  it,  and  then  up  again,  until  at  Elgin  he  arrives 
at  the  same  superior  yellow  bed  of  Old  Red  Sandstone  which 
he  had  quitted  at  Cupar-Fife.  Both  beds  contain  the  same 


808  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

organisms.  The  Holoptychius  of  Dura  Den,  near  Cupar, 
must  have  sprung  from  the  same  original  as  the  Holopty- 
chius of  the  Hospital  and  Bishop-Mill  quarries  near  Elgin ; 
and  it  seems  not  improbable  that  the  two  beds,  thus  identi- 
cal in  their  character  and  contents,  may  have  existed,  ere 
the  upheaval  of  the  Grampians  broke  their  continuity,  as  an 
extended  deposit,  at  the  bottom  of  the  same  sea.  But  with 
this  last  and  newest  of  the  formations  of  the  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone the  identity  of  the  deposits  to  the  south  and  north 
ceases.  The  strata  which  in  the  south  overlie  the  yellow 
bed  of  the  Holoptychius  represent  the  Carboniferous  period, 
the  overlying  strata  in  the  north  represent  the  Oolitic  one. 
On  the  one  side  the  miner  sinks  his  shaft,  and  finds  a  true 
coal,  composed  of  the  Stigmaria,  Calamites,  Club-mosses, 
Ferns,  and  Araucarians  of  the  Palaeozoic  era ;  he  sinks  his 
shaft  on  the  other  side,  and  finds  but  thin  seams  of  an  im- 
perfect lignite,  composed  of  the  Cycadeoo,  Pines,  Sphenop- 
teri,  and  Clathraria  of  the  Secondary  period.  The  flora 
which  found  its  subsoil  in  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  north  of 
the  Grampians,  belonged  to  a  scene  of  things  so  much  more 
modern  than  the  flora  which  found  its  subsoil  in  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  of  the  south,  that  all  its  productions  were  green 
and  flourishing,  waving  beside  lake,  river,  and  sea,  at  a  time 
when  the  productions  of  the  other  were  locked  up,  as  now, 
in  sand  and  shale,  lime  and  clay,  —  the  dead  mummies  of 
ages  long  departed. 

Another  thoroughly  wet  morning !  varied  only  from  the 
moming  of  the  preceding  day  by  the  absence  of  wind,  and 
the  greater  weight  of  the  persevering  vertical  rain,  that 
leaped  upwards  in  myriads  of  little  dancing  pyramids  from 
the  surface  of  every  pool.  I  walked  out  under  cover  of  my 
umbrella,  to  renew  my  acquaintance  with  the  outlier  of  the 
Weald  at  Linksfield,  and  ascertain  what  sort  of  section  it 
now  presented  under  the  quarrying  operations  of  the  lime- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  309 

burners.  There  was,  however,  little  to  be  seen ;  the  bands 
of  green  and  blue  clays,  alternating  with  strata  of  fossiliferous 
limestone,  and  layers  of  a  gray  shade,  thickly  charged  with 
minute  shells  of  Cypris,  were  sadly  blurred  this  morning  by 
the  trail  of  numerous  slips  from  above,  which  had  fallen 
during  the  rains,  and  softened  into  mud  as  they  rushed 
downwards  athwart  the  face  of  the  quarry :  and  the  arched 
band  of  boulder-clay  which  so  mysteriously  underlies  the 
deposit  was,  save  in  a  few  parts,  wholly  covered  up  by  the 
debris.  The  occurrence  of  the  clay  here  as  an  inferior  bed, 
with  but  the  cornstone  of  the  Old  Red  beneath,  and  all  the 
beds  of  the  Weald  resting  over  it,  forms  a  riddle  somewhat 
difficult  of  solution ;  but  it  is  palpably  not  reading  it  aright 
to  regard  the  deposit,  with  at  least  one  geologist  who  has 
Avritten  on  the  subject,  as  older  than  the  rocks  above.  It  is, 
on  the  contrary,  as  a  vast  amount  of  various  and  unequivocal 
evidence  demonstrates,  incalculably  more  modern ;  nay,  we 
find  proof  of  the  fact  here  in  that  very  bed  which  has  been 
instanced  as  rendering  it  doubtful ;  the  clay  of  which  the 
interpolation  is  composed  is  found  to  contain  fragments,  not 
only  of  the  cornstone  on  which  it  rests,  but  also  of  the 
"VVealden  limestone  and  shales  which  it  underlies.  It  forms 
the  mere  filling  up  of  a  flat-roofed  cavern,  or  rather  of  two 
flat-roofed  caverns,  —  for  the  limestone  roof  dipped  in  the 
centre  to  the  cornstone  floor,  —  which,  previous  to  the  times 
of  the  boulder-clay,  had  lain  open  in  what  was  then,  as  now, 
an  old-world  deposit,  charged  with  long  extinct  organisms, 
but  which,  during  the  iceberg  period,  was  penetrated  and 
occupied  by  the  clay,  as  run  lime  penetrates  and  occupies 
the  interstices  of  a  dry-stone  wall.  It  was  no  day  for  gath- 
ering fossils.  I  saw  a  few  ganoid  scales,  washed  by  the 
rain  from  the  investing  rubbish,  glittering  on  fragments  of 
the  limestone,  with  a  few  of  the  characteristic  shells  of  the 
deposit,  chiefly  Unionidas ;  but  nothing  worth  bringing 


810  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

away.  The  adhesive  clay  of  the  Weald,  widely  scattered 
by  the  workmen,  and  wrought  into  mortar  by  the  beating 
rains,  made  it  a  matter  of  some  difficulty  for  the  struggling 
foot  to  retain  the  shoe,  and,  sticking  to  my  soles  by  pounds 
at  a  time,  rendered  me  obnoxious  to  the  old  English  nick- 
name of  "  rough-footed  Scot."  And  so,  after  traversing  the 
heaps,  somewhat  like  a  fly  hi  treacle,  I  had  to  yield  to  the 
rain  above  and  the  mud  beneath,  and  to  return  to  do  in 
Elgin  what  cannot  be  done  equally  well  in  almost  any  other 
town  of  its  size  in  Scotland, — pursue  my  geological  inquiries 
under  cover. 

On  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  I  was  struck  by  the  com- 
plex and  very  various  forms  assumed  by  the  ganoid  scales 
of  the  Wealden.  Throughout  the  Oolitic  system  generally, 
including  the  Lias,  there  obtains  a  singular  complexity  of 
type  in  these  little  glittering  tiles  of  enamelled  bone,  which 
contrasts  strongly  with  the  greatly  more  simple  style  which 
obtained  among  the  ganoids  of  the  Palaeozoic  period.  In 
many  of  these  last,  as  in  the  Coelacanth  family,  including 
the  genera  Holoptychius,  Asterolepis,  and  Glyptolepis,  in  all 
their  many  species,  with  at  least  one  genus  of  Dipterians, 
the  genus  Dipterus,  the  external  outline  and  arrangement 
of  scale  was  as  simple  as  in  any  of  the  Cycloid  family  of  the 
present  time.  Like  slates  on  a  roof,  each  single  scale  cov- 
ered two,  and  was  covered  by  two  in  turn ;  and  the  only 
point  of  difference  which  existed  in  relation  to  the  laying 
down  of  these  massy  slates  of  bone,  and  the  laying  down  of 
the  very  thin  ones  of  horn  which  cover  fish  such  as  the  carp 
or  salmon,  was,  that  in  the  massier  slates,  the  sides,  or 
cover,  —  nicely  bevelled,  in  order  to  preserve  an  equability 
of  thickness  throughout,  —  were  so  adjusted,  that  two  scales 
at  their  edges,  where  they  lay  the  one  over  the  other,  were 
not  thicker  than  one  scale  at  its  centre.  Even  in  the  other 
ganoids,  their  contemporaries,  such  as  the  Osteolepis  and 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  311 

Diplopterus,  where  the  scales  were  ranged  more  in  the  tile 
fashion,  side  by  side,  there  was,  with  much  ingenious  car- 
pentry in  the  fitting,  a  general  simplicity  of  form.  It  would 
almost  appeal',  however,  that  ere  the  ganoid  order  reached 
the  times  of  the  Weald,  the  simple  forms  had  been  ex- 
hausted, and  that  nature,  abhorring  repetition,  and  ever 
stamping  upon  the  scales  some  specific  charactei-istic  of  the 
creature  that  bore  them,  was  obliged  to  have  recourse  to 
forms  of  a  more  complex  and  involved  outline.  These  latter- 
day  scales  send  out  nail-like  spikes  laterally  and  atop,  to  lay 
hold  upon  their  neighbors,  and  exhibit  in  their  undersides 
grooves  that  accommodated  the  nails  sent  out,  in  turn,  by 
their  neighbors,  to  lay  hold  upon  them.  Their  forms,  too, 
are  indescribably  various  and  fantastic.  It  seems  curious 
enough,  that  immediately  after  this  extremely  artificial 
state  of  things,  if  I  may  so  speak,  the  two  prevailing  orders 
of  the  fish  of  the  present  day,  the  Cycloids  and  Ctenoids, 
should  have  been  ushered  upon  the  scene,  and  more  than 
the  original  simplicity  of  scale  restored.  There  took  place 
a  sudden  reaction,  from  the  fantastic  and  the  complex  to 
the  simple  and  the  plain. 

It  is  further  worthy  of  notice,  that  though  many  of  the 
ganoid  scales  of  the  Secondary  systems,  including  those  of 
the  Wealden,  glitter  as  brightly  in  burnished  enamel  as 
the  more  splendent  scales  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  and 
Coal  Measures,  there  is  a  curious  peculiarity  exhibited  in 
the  structure  of  many  of  the  older  scales  of  the  highly 
enamelled  class,  which,  so  far  as  I  have  yet  seen,  does  not 
extend  beyond  the  Paleozoic  period.  The  outer  layer  of 
the  scale,  which  lies  over  a  middle  layer  of  a  cellular  can- 
cellated structure,  and  corresponds,  apparently,  with  that 
scarf-skin  which  in  the  human  subject  overlies  the  rete 
mucosum^  is  thickly  set  over  with  microscopic  pores,  fun- 
nel-shaped in  the  transverse  section,  and  which,  examined 


312  RAMBLES    OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

by  a  good  glass,  in  the  horizontal  one  resemble  the  punc- 
turings  of  a  sieve.  The  Megnlichthys  of  the  Coal  Meas- 
ures, with  its  various  carboniferous  congeners,  with  the 
genera  Diplopterus,  Dipterus,  and  Osteolepis  of  the  Old 
He'd  Sandstone,  —  all  brilliantly  enamelled  fish,  —  are 
thickly  pore-covered.  But  whatever  purpose  these  pores 
may  have  served,  it  seems  in  the  Secondary  period  to 
have  been  otherwise  accomplished,  if,  indeed,  it  continued 
to  exist.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  that  in  no  case  do 
the  pores  seem  to  pass  through  the  scale.  Whatever  their 
use,  they  existed  merely  as  communications  between  the 
cells  of  the  middle  cancellated  layer  and  the  surface.  In 
a  fish  of  the  Chalk,  —  Jlctcropoma  Mantelli^ — the  exposed 
fields  of  the  scales  are  covered  over  with  apparently  hol- 
low, elongated  cylinders,  as  the  little  tubes  in  a  shower- 
bath  cover  their  round  field  of  tin,  save  that  they  lie  in  a 
greatly  flatter  angle  than  the  tubes ;  but  I  know  not  that, 
like  the  pores  of  the  Dipterians  and  the  Megalichthys, 
they  communicated  between  the  interior  of  the  scale  and 
its  external  surface.  Their  structure  is  at  any  rate  palpa- 
bly different,  and  they  bear  no  such  resemblance  to  the 
pores  of  the  human  skin  as  that  which  the  Palaeozoic  pores 
present. 

The  amount  of  design  exhibited  in  the  scales  of  some  of 
the  more  ancient  ganoids,  —  design  obvious  enough  to  be 
clearly  read,  —  is  very  extraordinary.  A  single  scale  of 
Holoptycldus  Nobilissimus,  —  fast  locked  \ip  in  its  red 
sandstone  rock,  —  laid  by,  as  it  were,  for  ever,  —  will  be 
seen,  if  we  but  set  ourselves  to  unravel  its  texture,  to  form 
such  an  instance  of  nice  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end  as 
might  of  itself  be  sufficient  to  confound  the  atheist.  Let 
me  attempt  placing  one  of  these  scales  before  the  reader, 
in  its  character  as  a  flat  counter  of  bone,  of  a  nearly  circu- 
lar form,  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and  an  eighth- 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  313 

part  of  an  inch  in  thickness ;  and  then  ask  him  to  bethink 
himself  of  the  various  means  by  which  he  would  impart  to 
it  the  greatest  possible  degree  of  strength.  The  human 
skull  consists  of  two  tables  of  solid  bone,  an  inner  and  an 
outer,  with  a  spongy  cellular  substance  interposed  between 
them,  termed  the  diploe ;  and  such  is  the  effect  of  this 
arrangement,  that  the  blow  which  would  fracture  a  con- 
tinuous wall  of  bone  has  its  force  broken  by  the  spongy 
intermediate  layer,  and  merely  injures  the  outer  table, 
leaving  not  unfrequently  the  inner  one,  which  more  espe- 
cially protects  the  brain,  wholly  unharmed.  Now,  such 
also  was  the  arrangement  in  the  scale  of  the  Holopty 'chins 
Nobilissimus.  It  consisted  of  its  two  well-marked  tables 
of  solid  bone,  corresponding  in  their  dermal  character,  the 
outer  to  the  cuticle,  the  inner  to  the  true  skin,  and  the 
intermediate  cellular  layer  to  the  rete  mucosum;  but  bear- 
ing an  unmistakable  analogy  also,  as  a  mechanical  con- 
trivance, to  the*  two  plates  and  the  diploe  of  the  human 
skull.  To  the  strengthening  principle  of  the^two  tables, 
however,  there  were  two  other  principles  aTSded.  Crom- 
well, when  commissioning  for  a  new  helmet,  his  old  one 
being,  as  he  expresses  it,  "ill  set,"  ordered  his  friend  to 
send  him  a  '•'•fluted  pot"  i.  e.,  a  helmet  ridged  and  fur- 
rowed on  the  surface,  and  suited  to  break,  by  its  protuber- 
ant lines,  the  force  of  a  blow,  so  that  the  vibrations  of  the 
stroke  would  reach  the  body  of  the  metal  deadened  and 
flat.  Xow,  the  outer  table  of  the  scale  of  the  Holopty- 
chius  was  a  "fluted  pot."  The  alternate  ridges  and  fur- 
rows which  ornamented  its  surface  served  a  purpose 
exactly  similar  with  that  of  the  flutes  and  fillets  of  Crom- 
well's helmet.  The  inner  table  was  strengthened  on  a  dif- 
ferent but  not  less  effective  principle.  The  human  stomach 
consists  of  three  coats ;  and  two  of  these,  the  outei'most  or 
peritoneal  coat,  and  the  middle  or  muscular  coat,  are  so 

27 


314  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

arranged,  that  the  fibres  of  the  one  cross  at  nearly  right 
ancrles  those  of  the  other.  The  violence  which  would  tear 

O 

the  compact  sides  of  this  important  organ  along  the  fibres 
of  the  outer  coat,  would  be  checked  by  the  transverse 
arrangement  of  the  fibres  of  the  middle  coat,  and  vice 
versa.  We  find  the  cotton  manufacturer  weaving  some 
of  his  stronger  fabrics  on  a  similar  plan ;  —  they  also  are 
made  to  consist  of  two  coats ;  and  what  is  technically 
termed  the  tear  of  the  upper  is  so  disposed  that  it  lies  at 
an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees  with  the  tear  of  the  cout 
which  lies  underneath.  Now,  the  inner  table  of  the  scale 
of  the  Holoptychius  was  composed,  011  this  principle,  of 
various  layers  or  coats,  arranged  the  one  over  the  other,  so 
that  the  fibres  of  each  lay  at  right  angles  with  the  fibres 
of  the  others  in  immediate  contact  with  it.  In  the  inner 
table  of  one  scale  I  reckon  nine  of  these  alternating,  vari- 
ously-disposed layers ;  so  that  any  application  of  violence, 
which,  in  the  language  of  the  lath-splitter,  would  run 
lengtlucise  along  the  grain  of  four  of  them,  would  be 
checked  by  the  cross  grain  in  five.  In  other  words,  the 
line  of  the  tear  in  five  of  the  layers  was  ranged  at  right 
angles  with  the  line  of  the  tear  in  four.  There  were  thus 
in  a  single  scale,  in  order  to  secure  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  strength,  —  and  who  can  say  what  other  pur- 
poses may  have  been  secured  besides?  —  three  distinct 
principles  embodied, — the  principle  of  the  two  tables  ami 
diploe  of  the  human  skull,  —  the  principle  of  the  variously 
arranged  coats  of  the  human  stomach,  —  and  the  principle 
of  Oliver  Cromwell's  "fluted  pot."  There  have  been 
elaborate  treatises  written  on  those  ornate  flooring-tiles  of 
the  classical  and  middle  ages,  that  are  occasionally  dug  up 
by  the  antiquary  amid  monastic  ruins,  or  on  the  sites  of 
old  Roman  stations.  But  did  any  of  them  ever  tell  a  story 
half  so  instructive  or  so  strange  as  that  told  bv  the  inoal- 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  315 

culably  more  ancient  ganoid  tiles  of  the  Palaeozoic  and 
Secondary  periods  ? 

I  called,  on  my  way  back  from  Linksfield,  upon  my  old 
friend  Mr.  Patrick  Duff,  and  was  introduced  once  more  to 
his  exquisite  collection,  with  its  unique  ichthyolites  of  at 
least  two  genera  of  fishes  of  the  Old  Red,  —  the  Staff on- 
olepis  and  Placothorax  of  Agassiz,  —  which  up  to  the  pre- 
sent time  are  to  be  seen  nowhere  else ;  and  various  other 
fine  specimens  of  rare  species,  which,  having  sat  for  their 
portraits,  have  their  forms  preserved  in  the  great  work  of 
the  naturalist  of  Neufchatel.  He  showed  me,  with  some 
triumph,  one  of  his  later  acquisitions,  —  a  fine  specimen  of 
Holoptychius  from  the  upper  yellow  sandstone  of  Bishop- 
Mill,  which  exhibits  the  dorsal  ridge  covered  with  a  line 
of  large  overlapping  scales,  not  at  all  unlike  those  overlap- 
ping plates  which  cover  the  tail  of  the  lobster ;  for  which, 
by  the  way,  they  were  mistaken  by  the  workman  who 
first  laid  the  fossil  open.  I  examined,  too,  with  some 
interest,  fragments  of  a  gigantic  species  of  Pterichthys, 
belonging  to  an  inferior  division  of  the  same  Upper  Old 
Red  formation  as  the  yellow  stone,  designated  by  Agassiz 
Pterichthys  major,  which  must  have  attained  to  at  least 
thrice  the  size,  linearly,  of  even  its  bulkier  congeners  of 
the  Lower  formation  of  the  Coccosteus.  After  examining 
many  a  drawer,  stored,  from  the  deposits  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, with  characteristic  fossils  of  the  Lias,  the  Weald, 
and  the  Oolite,  and  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Old  Red,  we 
set  out  together  to  expatiate  amid  the  treasures  of  the 
Town  Museum. 

Among  other  recent  additions  to  the  Museum,  there  .is 
an  interesting  set  of  the  fishes  of  the  Ganges,  the  donation 
of  a  gentleman  long  resident  in  India,  to  which  Mr.  Duff 
called  my  attention,  as  illustrative,  in  some  of  the  speci- 
mens, of  the  more  characteristic  ichthyolites  of  the  Old 


316  RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

• 

Red  Sandstone.  One  numerous  family,  the  Pimelodi, 
abundantly  represented  in  the  Gangetic  region,  in  not 
only  the  rivers,  but  also  the  ponds,  tanks,  and  estuaries  of 
the  district,  is  certainly  worthy  the  careful  study  of  the 
geologist.  It  approaches  nearer,  in  some  of  its  more 
strongly-marked  genera,  to  the  Coccosteus  of  the  Lower 
Old  Red,  than  any  other  tribe  of  existing  fishes  which  I 
have  yet  seen.  The  body  of  the  Pimelodus,  from  the 
anterior  dorsal  downwards,  is  as  naked  as  that  of  the  eel ; 
whereas  the  head,  and  in  several  of  the  species  the  back,  is 
armed  with  strong  plates  of  naked  bone,  curiously  fretted, 
as  in  many  of  the  ichthyolites  of  the  Lower,  and  more 
especially  of  the  Upper  Old  Red  Sandstone,  into  ridges  of 
confluent  tubercles,  that  radiate  from  the  centre  to  the 
edges  of  the  plates.  The  dorsal  plate,  too,  when  detached, 
as  in  many  of  the  species,  from  the  plates  of  the  head, 
bears  upon  its  inner  side  a  strong  central  ridge,  that  deep- 
ens as  it  descends,  till  it  abrubtly  terminates  a  little  short 
of  the  termination  of  the  plate,  exactly  as  in  the  dorsal 
plate  of  Coccosteus,  which  sunk  its  central  ridge  deep  into 
the  back  of  the  animal.  The  point  of  resemblance  to  be 
mainly  noticed,  however,  is  the  contrast  furnished  by  the 
powerful  armature  of  the  head  and  back,  with  the  unpro- 
tected nakedness  of  the  posterior  portions  of  the  creature ; 
—  a  point  specially  noticeable  in  the  Coccosteus,  and 
apparent  also,  though  in  a  lesser  degree,  in  some  of  the 
other  genera  of  the  Old  Red,  such  as  the  Pterichthyes  and 
Asterolepides.  From  the  snout  of  the  Coccosteus  down 
to  the  posterior  termination  of  the  dorsal  plate,  the  crea- 
ture was  cased  in  strong  armor,  the  plates  of  which  remain 
as  freshly  preserved  in  the  ancient  rocks  of  the  country  as 
those  of  the  Pimelodi  of  the  Ganges  on  the  shelves  of  the 
Elgin  Museum;  but  from  the  pointed  termination  of  the 
plate  immediately  over  the  dorsal  fin,  to  the  tail,  compris- 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  317 

ing  more  than  one  half  the  entire  length  of  the  animal,  all 
seems  to  have  been  exposed,  without  the  protection  of 
even  a  scale,  and  there  survives  in  the  better  specimens 
only  the  internal  skeleton  of  the  fish  and.  the  ray-bones  of 
the  fins.  It  was  armed,  like  a  French  dragoon,  with  a 
strong  helmet  and  a  short  cuirass;  and  so  we  find  its 
remains  in  the  state  in  which  those  of  some  of  the  sol- 
diers of  Napoleon's  old  guard,  that  had  been  committed 
unstripped  to  the  earth,  may  be  dug  up  in  the  future  on 
the  fatal  field  of  Borodino,  or  along  the  banks  of  the 
Dwina  or  the  Wap.  The  cuirass  lies  still  attached  to  the 
helmet,  but  we  find  only  the  naked  skeleton  attached  to 
the  cuirass.  The  Pterichthys  to  its  strong  helmet  and 
cuirass  added  a  posterior  armature  of  comparatively  feeble 
scales,  as  if,  while  its  upper  parts  were  shielded  with  plate 
armor,  a  lighter  covering  of  ring  or  scale  armor  sufficed 
for  the  less  vital  parts  beneath.  In  the  Asterolepis  the 
arrangement  was  somewhat  similar,  save  that  the  plated 
cuirass  was  wanting :  it  was  a  strongly  helmed  warrior  in 
slight  scale  armor;  for  the  disproportion  between  the 
strength  of  the  plated  head-piece  and  that  of  the  scaly 
coat  was  still  greater  than  in  the  Pterichthys.  The  occip- 
ital star-covered  plates  are,  in  some  of  the  larger  speci- 
mens, fully  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  thickness,  whereas 
the  thickness  of  the  delicately-fretted  scales  rarely  exceeds 
a  line. 

Why  this  disproportion  between  the  strength  of  the 
armature  in  different  parts  of  the  same  fish  should  have 
obtained,  as  in  Pterichthys  and  Asterolepis,  or  why,  while 
one  portion  of  the  animal  was  strongly  armed,  another 
portion  should  have  been  left,  as  in  Coccosteus,  wholly 
exposed,  cannot  of  course  be  determined  by  the  mere 
geologist.  His  rocks  present  him  with  but  the  fact  of  the 
disproportion,  without  accounting  for  it.  But  the  natural 

27* 


318  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

history  of  existing  fish,  in  which,  as  in  the  Pimelodi,  there 
may  be  detected  a  similar  peculiarity  of  armature,  may 
perhaps  throw  some  light  on  the  mystery.  In  Hamilton's 
*' Fishes  of  the  Ganges"  I  find  but  little  reference  made  to 
the  instincts  and  habits  of  the  animals  described:  their 
deep-river  haunts  lie,  in  many  cases,  beyond  the  reach  of 
observation ;  and  of  the  observations  actually  made,  the 
descriptive  naturalist,  intent  often  on  mere  peculiarities  of 
structure,  is  not  unfrequently  too  careless.  Hamilton 
describes  the  habitats  of  the  various  Indian  species  of 
Pimelodi,  whether  brackish  estuaries,  ponds,  or  rivers,  but 
not  their  characteristic  instincts.  Of  the  Silurus,  however,, 
a  genus  of  the  same  great  family,  I  read  elsewhere  that 
some  of  the  species,  such  as  the  Silurus  ylanis,  being 
unwieldy  in  their  motions,  do  not  pursue  their  prey,  Avhich 
consists  of  small  fishes,  but  lie  concealed  among  the  mud, 
and  seize  on  the  chance  stragglers  that  come  their  way. 
And  of  the  Pimelodus  gulio,  a  little,  strongly-helmed  fish, 
with  a  naked  body,  I  was  informed  by  Mr.  Duff,  on  the 
authority  of  the  gentleman  who  had  presented  the  speci- 
mens to  the  Museum,  that  it  burrowed  in  the  holes  of 
muddy  banks,  from  which  it  shot  out  its  armed  head,  and 
arrested,  as  they  passed,  the  minute  animals  on  which  it 
preyed.  The  animal  world  is  full  of  such  compensatory 
defences :  there  is  a  half-suit  of  armor  given  to  shield  half 
the  body,  and  a  wise  instinct  to  protect  the  rest.  The 
Pholas  crispata  cannot  shut  its  valves  so  as  to  protect  its 
anterior  parts,  without  raising  them  from  off  those  parts 
which  lie  behind :  like  the  Irishman  in  the  haunted  house, 
who  attempted  lengthening  his  blanket  by  cutting  strips 
from  the  top  and  sewing  them  on  to  the  bottom,  it  loses 
at  the  one  end  what  it  gains  at  the  other ;  but,  hemmed 
round  by  the  solid  walls  of  the  recess  which  it  is  its  nature 
to  hollow  out  for  itself  in  shale  or  stone,  the  anterior  parts, 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  319 

though  uncovered  by  the  shell,  are  not  exposed.  By  clos- 
ing its  valves  anteriorly,  it  shuts  the  door  of  its  little  house, 
made  like  that  of  the  coney-folk  of  Scripture,  in  the  rock ; 
and  then,  of  the  entire  cell  in  which  it  dwells  so  secure, 
what  is  not  shut  door  is  impregnable  wall.  The  remark 
of  Paley,  that  the  "  human  animal  is  the  only  one  which  is 
naked,  and  the  only  one  which  can  clothe  itself,"  is  by  no 
means  quite  correct.  One  half  the  hermit  crab  is  as  naked 
as  the  "  human  animal,"  and  even  less  fitted  for  exposure ; 
for  it  consists  of  a  thin-skinned,  soft,  unmuscular  bag,  filled 
with  delicate  viscera;  but  not  even  the  human  animal  is 
more  skilful  in  clothing  himself  in  the  spoils  of  other  ani- 
mals than  the  hermit  crab  in  wrapping  up  its  naked  bag  in 
the  strong  shell  of  some  dead  fusus  or  buccinum,  which  it 
carries  about  with  it  in  all  its  peregrinations,  as  at  once 
clothes,  armor,  and  house.  Nature  arms  its  front,  and  it  is 
itself  wise  enough  to  arm  its  rear.  Now,  it  seems  not 
improbable  that  the  half-armed  Coccosteus,  a  heavy  fish, 
indifferently  furaished  with  fins,  may  have  burrowed,  like 
the  recent  Silurus  glanis  or  Pimelodus  gulio,  in  a  thick 
mud,  —  of  the  existence  of  which  in  vast  quantity,  during 
the  times  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  the  dark  Caithness 
flagstones,  the  fetid  breccia  of  Strathpeffer,  and  the  gray 
stratified  clays  of  Cromarty,  Moray,  and  Banff,  unequivo- 
cally testify ;  and  that  it  may  have  thus  not  only  succeeded 
in  capturing  many  of  its  light-winged  contemporaries, 
which  it  would  have  vainly  pursued  in  open  sea,  but  may 
have  been  enabled  also  to  present  to  its  enemies,  when 
assailed  in  turn,  only  its  armed  portions,  and  to  protect  its 
unarmed  parts  in  its  burrow.  It  is  further  worthy  of 
notice,  that  many  of  the  Pimelodi  are  furnished  with 
spines,  not,  like  those  ichthyodorulites  which  occur  so  fre- 
quently in  the  older  Secondary  and  Palaeozoic  divisions, 
unfinished  in  appearance  at  their  lower  extremity,  as  if, 


320  RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

like  the  spines  of  the  ancient  Acanthodi,  or  those  of  the 
recent  dog-fish  (/Spinax  acanthias),  they  had  been  simply 
embedded  in  the  flesh,  but  bearing,  lilce  the  wings  of  the 
Pterichthys,  an.  articulated  aspect.  Those  of  the  Pirndo- 
dus  rita  and  Pimelodus  gagata  are  of  singular  beauty; 
and  when  the  creatures  have  no  further  use  for  them,  and 
the  mud  of  the  Ganges  has  been  consolidated  into  shale  or 
baked  into  flagstone  around  them,  they  will  make  very 
exquisite  fossils.  A  correct  drawing  of  the  plates  and 
spines  of  some  of  the  members  of  the  Pimelodi  family, 
with  a  portion  of  the  internal  skeletons,  arranged  in  their 
proper  places,  but  divested  of  those  more  destructible 
parts  to  which  they  are  attached,  would  serve  admirably 
to  show  what  strange  forms  fish  not  greatly  removed  from 
the  ordinary  type  may  assume  in  the  fossil  state,  and 
might  throw  some  light  on  the  extraordinary  appearance 
assumed,  as  ichthyolites,  by  the  old  family  of  the  Cephal- 
aspians. 

The  geological  depaitment  of  the  Elgin  Museum  is  not 
yet  very  complete.  The  private  collections  of  the  locality, 
by  forestalling,  greatly  restrict  the  supply  from  the  rich 
deposits  in  the  neighboi'hood,  and  have  an  unquestioned 
right  to  do  so.  The  Museum  contains,  however,  several 
interesting  organisms.  I  saw,  among  the  others,  a  speci- 
men of  Diplopterus,  that  showed  the  form  and  position  of 
the  fins  of  this  rather  rare  ichthyolite  much  better  than 
any  of  the  Morayshire  specimens  portrayed  by  Agassiz  in 
his  great  work ;  and  beside  it,  one  of  the  two  specimens  of 
Pterichthys  oblongus  which  he  figures,  and  on  which  he 
establishes  the  species.  The  other  individual,  —  a  Cro- 
marty  specimen,  —  graces  my  little  collection.  The  gloomy 
day  passed  pleasantly  in  deciphering,  with  so  accomplished 
a  geologist  as  Mr.  Duff,  these  curious  hieroglyphics  of  the 
old  world,  that  tell  such  wonderful  stories,  and  in  compar- 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  321 

ing  viva  voce,  as  we  were  wont  to  do  long  years  before  in 
lengthy  epistles,  our  respective  notions  regarding  the  true 
key  for  laying  open  their  more  occult  meanings.  And, 
after  sharing  with  him  in  his  family  dinner,  I  again  took 
my  seat  on  the  mail,  as  a  chill,  raw  evening  was  falling, 
and  rode  on,  some  six  or  eight  and  twenty  miles,  to  Camp- 
belton.  The  rain  pattered  drearily  through  the  night  on 
my  bed-room  window ;  and  as  frequent  exposure  to  the 
wet  had  begun  to  tell  on  a  constitution  not  altogether  so 
strong  as  it  had  once  been,  I  awakened  oftener  than  was 
quite  comfortable,  to  hear  it.  The  morning,  hoAvever,  was 
dry,  though  gray  and  sunless ;  and,  taking  an  early  break- 
fast at  the  inn,  I  traversed  the  flat  gravelly  points  of 
Ardersier  and  Fortrose,  that,  projecting  like  moles  far  into 
the  Frith,  narrow  the  intervening  ferry  to  considerably  less 
than  one-third  the  width  which  it  would  present  were  they 
away.  The  origin  of  these  long  detrital  promontories, 
which  form,  when  viewed  from  the  heights  on  either  side, 
so  peculiar  a  feature  in  the  landscape,  and  which,  were 
they  directly  opposite,  instead  of  being  set  down  a  mile 
awry,  would  shut  up  the  opening  altogether,  has  not  yet 
been  satisfactorily  accounted  for.  One  special  theory 
assigns  their  formation  to  the  agency  of  the  descending 
tide,  striking  in  zig-gig  style,  in  consequence  of  some  pecu- 
liarity of  the  coast-line  or  of  the  bottom,  from  side  to  side 
of  the  Frith,  and  depositing  a  long  trail  of  sand  and  gravel, 
at  nearly  right  angles  with  the  beach,  first  on  the  one  shore 
and  then  on  the  other.  But  why  the  tide,  which  runs  in 
various  zig-zag  crossings  in  the  course  of  the  Frith,  should 
have  the  effect  here,  and  nowhere  else,  of  raising  two  vast 
mounds,  each  a  full  mile  and  a  quarter  in  length,  with  an 
average  breadth  of  from  two  to  five  furlongs,  is  by  no 
means  very  apparent.  Certainly  the  present  tides  of  the 
Frith  could  not  have  formed  them,  nor  could  they  have 


322  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

been  elevated  to  their  present  average  height  of  ten  or 
twelve  feet  over  the  flood-line  in  a  sea  standing  at  the 
existing  level.  If  they  in  reality  originated  in  this  cause, 
it  must  have  been  ere  the  latter  upheavals  of  the  land  or 
recessions  of  the  sea,  when  the  great  Caledonian  Valley 
existed  as  a  narrow  ocean  sound,  swept  by  powerful  cur- 
rents. Upon  another  and  entirely  different  hypothesis, 
these  flat  promontories  have  been  regarded  as  the  remains, 
levelled  by  the  waves,  and  gapped  direct  in  the  middle  by 
the  tide,  of  a  vast  transverse  morain  of  the  great  valley, 
belonging  to  the  same  glacial  age  as  the  lateral  morains 
some  ten  or  fifteen  miles  higher  up,  that  extend  from  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  Inverness  to  the  mansion-house 
of  Dochfour.  But  this  hypothesis,  like  the  other,  is  not 
without  its  difficulties.  Why,  for  instance,  should  the  pro- 
montories be  a  mile  awry  ?  There  is,  however,  yet  another 
mode  of  accounting  for  their  formation,  which  I  am  not  in 
the  least  disposed  to  criticise. 

They  were  constructed,  says  tradition,  through  the  agency 
of  the  arch-wizard  Michael  Scott.  Michael  had  called  up 
the  hosts  of  Faery  to  erect  the  cathedral  of  Elgin  and  the 
chanonry  kirk  of  Fortrose,  which  they  completed  from 
foundation  to  ridge,  each  in  a  single  night,  —  committing, 
in  their  hurry,  merely  the  slight  mistake  of  locating  the 
building  intended  for  Elgin  in  Fortrose,  and  that  intended 
for  Fortrose  in  Elgin ;  but,  their  work  over  and  done,  and 
when  the  magician  had  no  further  use  for  them,  they  abso- 
lutely refused  to  be  laid ;  and,  like  &  posse  of  Irish  laborers 
thrown  out  of  a  job,  came  thronging  round  him,  clamoring 
for  more  employment.  Fearing  lest  he  should  be  torn  in 
pieces,  —  a  catastrophe  which  has  not  unfrequently  hap- 
pened in  such  circumstances  in  the  olden  time,  and  of 
which  those  recent  philanthropists  who  engage  themselves 
in  finding  work  for  the  unemployed  may  have  perhaps 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  323 

entertained  some  little  dread  in  our  own  days,  —  he  got 
rid  of  them  for  the  time  by  setting  them  off  in  a  body  to 
run  a  mound  across  the  Moray  Frith  from  Fortrose  to 
Ardersier.  Toiling  hard  in  the  evening  of  a  moonlight 
night,  they  had  proceeded  greatly  more  than  two-thirds 
towards  the  completion  of  the  undertaking,  when  a  luckless 
Highlander  passing  by  bade  God-speed  the  work,  and,  by 
thus  breaking  the  charm,  arrested  at  once  and  forever  the 
construction  of  the  mound,  and  saved  the  navigation  of 
Inverness. 

I  stood  for  a  few  seconds  at  the  Burn  of  Rosemarkie 
undecided  whether  I  should  take  the  Scarfs-Craig  road, — 
a  break-neck  path  which  runs  eastwards  along  the  cliffs, 
and  which,  though  the  rougher,  is  the  more  direct  Cro- 
marty  line  of  the  two,  —  or  the  considerably  better  though 
longer  line  of  the  White  Bog,  which  strikes  upwards  along 
the  burn  in  a  westerly  direction,  and  joins  the  Cromarty 
and  Inverness  highway  on  the  moor  of  the  Maolbuie.  I 
had  got  into  a  part  of  the  country  where  every  little  local- 
ity, and  every  more  striking  feature  in  the  landscape,  has 
its  associated  tradition;  and  the  pause  of  a  few  moments 
at  the  two  roads  recalled  to  my  memory  the  details  of  a 
ghost-story,  long  regarded  in  the  district  in  which  it  was 
best  known  as  one  of  the  most  authentic  of  its  class,  but 
which  seems  by  no  means  inexplicable  on  natural  princi- 
ples.* 

*  The  story  here  referred  to  is  narrated  in  "  Scenes  and  Legends  of  the 
North  of  Scotland,"  chap.  xxv. 


CHAPTER    V. 

Rosemarkic  and  its  Scaurs  —  Kaes'  Craig  —  A  Jackdaw  Settlement  —  "  Rose- 
markic  Kaes"  and  "  Cromarty  Cooties" — "The  Danes,"  a  Group  of  Ex- 
cavations —  At  Home  in  Cromarty  —  The  Boulder-clay  of  Cromarty  "  begins 
to  tell  its  story  "  —  One  of  its  marked  Scenic  Peculiarities  —  Hints  to  Land- 
scape Painters  —  "  Samuel's  Well  "  —  A  Chain  of  Bogs  geologically  accounted 
for  —  Another  Scenic  Peculiarity  —  "Ha-has  of  Nature's  digging" — The 
Author's  earliest  Field  of  Hard  Labor  —  Picturesque  Cliff  of  Boulder-clay  — 
Scratchings  on  the  Sandstone  —  Invariable  Characteristic  of  true  Boulder-clay 
—  Scratchings  on  Pebbles  in  the  line  of  the  longer  axis  —  Illustration  from 
the  Boulder-clay  of  Banff. 

ROSEJIARKIE,  with  its  long  narrow  valley  and  its  red 
abrupt  scaurs,*  is  chiefly  interesting  to  the  geologist  for  its 
vast  beds  of  the  boulder-clay.  I  am  acquainted  with  no 
other  locality  in  the  kingdom  where  this  deposit  is  hollowed 
into  ravines  so  profound,  or  presents  precipices  so  imposing 
and  lofty.  The  clay  lies  thickly  over  most  part  of  the 
Black  Isle  and  the  peninsula  of  Easter  Ross,  —  both  soft 
sandstone  districts,  —  bearing  everywhere  an  obvious  rela- 
tion, as  a  deposit,  to  both  the  form  and  the  conditions  of 
exposure  of  the  existing  land, — just  as  the  accumulated  snow 
of  a  long-lying  snow-storm,  exposed  to  the  drifting  wind,bears 
relation  to  the  heights  and  hollows  of  the  tracts  which  it 
covers.  On  the  higher  eminences  the  clay  forms  a  com- 
paratively thin  stratum,  and  in  not  a  few  instances  it  has 
been  wholly  worn  away ;  while  on  the  lower  grounds,  im- 
mediately over  the  old  coast  line,  and  in  the  sides  of  hollow 
valleys,  —  exactly  such  places  as  we  might  expect  to  see  the 

*  Scaur,  Scotice,  a  precipice  of  clay.  There  is  no  single  English  word 
that  conveys  exactly  the  same  idea. 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  325 

snow  occupying  most  deeply  after  a  night  of  drift,  —  we 
find  it  accumulated  in  vast  beds  of  from  eighty  to  an  hun- 
dred feet  in  thickness.  One  of  these  occurs  in  the  opening 
of  the  narrow  valley  along  which  my  course  this  morning 
lay,  and  is  known  far  and  wide,  —  for  it  forms  a  marked 
feature  in  the  landscape,  and  harbors  in  its  recesses  a  count- 
less multitude  of  jackdaws,  —  as  the  "  Kaes'  Craig  of 
Rosemarkie."  It  presents  the  appearance  of  a  hill  that  had 
been  cut  sheer  through  the  middle  from  top  to  base,  and 
exhibits  in  its  abrupt  front  a  broad  red  perpendicular  section 
of  at  least  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  barred  transversely  by 
thin  layers  of  sand,  and  scored  vertically  by  the  slow  action 
of  the  rains.  Originally  it  must  have  stretched  its  vanished 
limb  across  the  opening  like  some  huge  snow-wreath  accu- 
mulated athwart  a  frozen  rivulet ;  but  the  incessant  sweep 
of  the  stream  that  runs  through  the  valley  has  long  since 
amputated  and  carried  it  away ;  and  so  only  half  the  hill 
now  remains.  The  Kaes'  Craig  resembles  in  form  a  lofty 
chalk  cliff,  square,  massy,  abrupt,  with  no  sloping  fillet  of 
vegetation  bound  across  its  brow,  but  precipitous  direct 
from  the  hill-top.  The  little  ancient  village  of  Rosemarkie 
stretches  away  from  its  base  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
stream ;  and  on  its  summit  and  along  its  sides,  groups  of 
chattering  jackdaws,  each  one  of  them  as  reflective  and 
philosophic  as  the  individual  immortalized  by  Cowper,  look 
down  high  over  the  chimneys  into  the  streets.  The  clay 
presents  here,  more  than  in  almost  any  other  locality  with 
which  I  am  acquainted,  the  character  of  a  stratified  deposit ; 
and  the  numerous  bands  of  sand  by  which  the  cliff  is  hori- 
zontally streaked  from  top  to  bottom  we  find  hollowed,  as  we 
approach,  into  a  multitude  of  circular  openings,  like  shot- 
holes  in  an  old  tower,  which  form  breeding-places  for  the 
daw  and  the  sand-martin.  The  biped  inhabitants  of  the 
cliff  are  greatly  more  numerous  than  the  biped  inhabitants 
28 


326  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

of  the  quiet  little  hamlet  below ;  and  on  Fortrose  fair-days, 
when,  in  virtue  of  an  old  feud,  the  Rosemarkie  boys  were 
wont  to- engage  in  formidable  bickers  with  the  boys  of  Cro- 
marty,  I  remember,  as  one  of  the  invading  belligerents,  that, 
in  bandying  names  with  them  in  the  fray,  we  delighted  to 
bestow  upon  them,  as  their  hereditary  sobriquet,  given,  of 
course,  in  allusion  to  their  feathered  neighbors,  the  designa- 
tion of  the  "  Rosemarkie  kaes"  Cromarty,  however,  is 
two-thirds  surrounded  by  the  waters  of  a  frith  abounding 
in  sea-fowl ;  and  the  little  fellows  of  Rosemarkie,  indignant 
at  being  classed  with  their  kaes,  used  to  designate  us  with 
hearty  emphasis,  in  turn,  as  the  "  Cromarty  cooties,"  i.  e., 
coots. 

A  little  higher  up  the  valley,  on  the  western  side,  there 
occurs  in  the  clay  what  may  be  termed  a  group  of  excava- 
tions, composing  a  piece  of  scenery  ruinously  broken  and 
dreary,  and  that  bears  a  specific  character  of  its  own  which 
scarce  any  other  deposit  could  have  exhibited.  The  exca- 
vations are  of  considerable  depth  and  extent,  —  hollows  out 
of  which  the  materials  of  pyramids  might  have  been  taken. 
The  precipitous  sides  are  fretted  by  jutting  ridges  and 
receding  inflections,  that  present  in  abundance  their  diversi- 
fied alternations  of  light  and  shadow.  The  steep  descents 
form  cycloid  curves,  that  flatten  at  their  bases,  and  over 
which  the  ferruginous  stratum  of  mould  atop  projects  like  a 
cornice.  Between  neighboring  excavations  there  stand  up 
dividing  walls,  tall  and  thin  as  those  of  our  city  buildings, 
and  in  some  cases  broken  at  their  upper  edges  into  rows  of 
sharp  pinnacles  or  inaccessible  turf-coped  turrets ;  while  at 
the  bottom  of  the  hollows,  washed  by  the  runnels  which,  in 
the  slow  lapse  of  years,  have  been  the  architects  of  the  whole, 
we  find  cairn-like  accumulations  of  water-rolled  stones,  — 
the  disengaged  pebbles  and  boulders  of  the  deposit.  The 
boulders  and  pebbles  project  also  from  the  steep  sides,  at  all 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  327 

heights  and  of  all  sizes,  like  the  primary  masses  inclosed  in 
our  ancient  conglomerates,  when  exhibited  in  Avave-worn 
precipices,  —  forcing  upon  the  mind  the  conclusion  that  the 
boulder-clay  is  itself  but  an  unconsolidated  conglomerate  of 
the  later  periods,  which  occupies  nearly  the  same  relative 
position  to  the  existing  vegetable  mould,  with  all  its  recent 
productions,  that  the  great  conglomerate  of  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  occupies  in  relation  to  the  lower  ichthyolite  beds 
of  that  system,  with  their  numerous  extinct  organisms. 
But  its  buried  stones  are  fretted  with  hieroglyphic  inscrip- 
tions, in  the  form  of  strange  scratchings  and  polishings, 
grooves,  ridges,  arid  furrows,  —  always  associated  with  the 
boulder-clays,  —  which  those  of  the  more  ancient  conglom- 
erates want,  and  which,  though  difficult  to  read,  seem  at 
length  to  be  yielding  up  the  story  which  they  record.  Of 
this,  however,  more  anon.  Viewed  by  moonlight,  when  the 
pale  red  of  the  clay  where  the  beam  falls  direct  is  relieved 
by  the  intense  shadows,  these  excavations  of  the  valley  of 
Rosemarkie  form  scenes  of  strange  and  ghostly  wildness : 
the  projecting,  buttress-like  angles,  —  the  broken  walls, — 
the  curved  inflections,  —  the  pointed  pinnacles,  —  the  tur- 
rets, with  their  masses  of  projecting  coping, — the  utter 
lack  of  vegetation,  save  where  the  heath  and  the  furze  rustle 
far  above,  —  all  combine  to  form  assemblages  of  dreary 
ruins,  amid  which,  in  the  solitude  of  night,  one  almost  ex- 
pects to  see  spirits  walk.  These  excavations  have  been 
designated,  from  time  immemorial,  by  the  neighboring 
town's-peoplc,  as  "  the  Danes ;"  but  Avhether  the  name  be, 
as  is  most  probable,  merely  a  corruption  of  an  appropriate 
enough  Saxon  word,  "the  dens,"  or  derived,  as  a  vague 
tradition  is  said  to  testify,  from  the  ages  of  Danish  invasion, 
it  is  not  quite  the  part  of  the  geologist  to  determine.  It 
may  be  worth  mentioning,  however,  from  its  bearing  on  the 
point,  that  there  are  two  excavations  in  the  boulder-clay 


328  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

near  Cromarty,  one  of  which  has  been  long  known  by 
the  name  of  "  the  Morial's  Den,"  while  the  other,  greatly 
smaller  in  size,  rejoices  in  the  double  diminutive  of  "  the 
Little  Dennie."  For  an  hour  or  so  the  Danes  proved 
agreeable  though  somewhat  silent  companions ;  and  then, 
climbing  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley,  I  gained  the  high 
road,  and,  walking  on  to  Cromarty,  found  myself  once  more 
among  "  the  old  familiar  faces." 

In  a  few  days  the  storm  blew  by ;  and  as  the  prolonged 
rains  had  cleared  out  the  deep  ravines  of  the  district,  and 
given  to  the  boulder-clay  in  which  they  are  scooped  a  fresh- 
ness in  its  section  analogous  to  fresh  fracture  in  rocks  of 
harder  consistency,  I  availed  myself  of  the  facilities  afforded 
me  in  consequence,  for  exploring  it  once  more.  It  has  long 
constituted  one  of  the  hardest  of  the  many  riddles  with 
which  our  Scottish  deposits  exercise  the  patience  and  inge- 
nuity of  the  geologist.  I  remember  a  time  when,  after 
passing  a  day  under  its  barren  scaurs,  or  hid  in  its  precipi- 
tous ravines,  I  used  to  feel  in  the  evening  as  if  I  had  been 
travelling  under  the  cloud  of  night,  and  had  seen  nothing. 
It  was  a  morose  and  taciturn  companion,  and  had  no  specu- 
lation in  it.  I  might  stand  in  front  of  its  curved  precipices, 
red,  yellow  or  gray,  according  to  the  prevailing  average 
color  of  the  rocks  on  which  it  rests,  and  mark  their  water- 
rolled  boulders,  of  all  qualities  and  sizes,  sticking  out  in 
bold  relief  from  the  surface,  like  the  rock-like  protuberances 
that  roughen  the  rustic  basements  of  the  architect,  from  the 
line  of  the  wall ;  but  I  had  no  open  sesame  to  form  vistas 
through  them  into  the  recesses  of  the  past.  I  saw  merely 
the  stiff  pastry  matrix  of  which  they  are  composed,  and  the 
inclosed  pebbles.  But  the  boulder-clay  has  of  late  become 
more  sociable  ;  and,  though  with  much  hesitancy  and  irreso- 
lution, like  old  Mr.  Spectator  on  the  first  formal  opening 
of  his  mouth,  —  a  consequence,  doubtless,  in  both  cases  of 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  829 

previous  habits  of  silence  long  indulged,  —  it  begins  to  tell 
its  story.     And  a  most  curious  story  it  is. 

The  morning  was  clear,  but  just  a  little  chill ;  and  a  soft 
covering  of  snow,  that  had  fallen  during  the  storm  on  the 
flat  summit  of  Bcn-Wevis,  and  showed  its  extreme  tenuity 
by  the  paleness  of  its  tint  of  watery  blue,  was  still  distinctly 
visible  at  the  distance  of  full  twenty  miles.  The  sun,  low 
in  the  sky, — for  the  hour  was  early, — cast  its  slant  rays 
athwart  the  prospect,  giving  to  each  nearer  bank  and  hillock, 
and  to  the  more  distant  protuberances  on  the  mountain- 
sides, those  well-defined  accompaniments  of  shadow  that 
serve  by  throwing  the  minor  features  of  a  landscape  upon 
the  eye  in  bold  relief,  to  impart  to  it  an  air  of  higher  finish 
and  more  careful  filling  up  than  it  ever  bears  under  a  more 
vertical  light.  I  took  the  road  which,  leading  westward 
from  the  town  towards  Invergordon  Ferry,  skirts  the  Frith 
on  the  one  hand,  and  runs  immediately  under  the  noble 
escarpment  of  green  bank  formed  by  the  old  coast  line  on 
the  other.  Fully  two-thirds  of  the  entire  height  of  the 
rampart  here,  which  rises  in  all  about  a  hundred  feet  over 
the  sea-level,  is  formed  of  the  boulder-clay  ;  and  I  am 
acquainted  with  no  locality  in  which  the  deposit  presents 
more  strongly,  for  at  least  the  first  half  mile,  one  of  its 
marked  scenic  peculiarities.  It  is  furrowed  vertically  on 
the  slope,  as  if  by  enormous  flutings  in  'the  more  antique 
Doric  style ;  and  the  ridges  by  Avhich  these  are  separated, 
—  each  from  a  hundred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in 
length,  and  from  five-and-twenty  to  thirty  feet  in  average 
height, — resemble  those  burial  mounds  with  which  the 
sexton  frets  the  churchyard  turf ;  with  this  difference,  how- 
ever, that  they  seem  the  burial  mounds  of  giants,  tall  and 
bulky  as  those  that  of  old  warred  against  the  gods.  They 
are  striking  enough  to  have  caught  the  eye  of  the  children 
of  the  place,  and  are  known  among  them  as  the  Giants' 
28* 


330  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

Graves.  I  could  fain  have  taken  their  portrait  in  a  calo- 
type  this  morning,  as  they  lay  against  the  green  bank, — • 
their  feet  to  the  shore,  and  their  heads  on  the  top  of  the 
escarpment,  — like  patients  on  a  reclining  bed,  and  strongly 
marked,  each  by  its  broad  bar  of  yellow  light  and  of  dark 
shadow,  like  the  ebon  and  ivory  buttresses  of  the  poet. 
This  little  vignette,  I  would  have  said  to  the  landscape 
painter,  represents  the  boulder-clay,  after  its  precipitous 
banks  —  worn  down,  by  the  frosts  and  rains  of  centuries, 
into  parallel  runnels,  that  gradually  widened  into  these 
hollow  grooves — had  snnk  into  the  angle  of  inclination  at 
which  the  disintegrating  agents  ceased  to  operate,  and  the 
green  sward  covered  all  up.  You  must  be  studying  these 
peculiarities  of  aspect  more  than  ever  you  studied  them 
before.  There  is  a  time  coming  when  the  connoisseur 
will  as  rigidly  demand  the  specific  character  of  the  various 
geologic  rocks  and  deposits  in  your  hills,  scaurs,  and  preci- 
pices, as  he  now  demands  specific  character  in  your  shrubs 
and  trees 

It  is  worthy  the  notice  of  the  young  geologist,  who  has 
just  set  himself  to  study  the  various  effects  produced  on 
the  surface  of  a  country  by  the  deposits  which  lie  under  it, 
that  for  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  so,  the  base  of  the 
escarpment  here  is  bordered  by  a  line  of  bogs,  that  bear  in 
the  driest  weather  their  mantling  of  green.  They  are  fed 
with  a  perennial  supply  of  water,  by  a  range  of  deep-seated 
springs,  that  come  bursting  out  from  under  the  boulder- 
clay  ;  and  one  of  their  number,  which  bears  I  know  not 
why,  the  name  of  Samuel's  "Well,  and  yields  its  equable  flow , 
at  an  equable  temperature,  summer  and  winter,  into  a  stone 
trough  by  the  way-side,  is  not  a  little  prized  by  the  town's- 
people,  and  the  seamen  that  cast  anchor  in  the  opposite 
roadstead,  for  the  lightness  and  purity  of  its  water.  What 
is  specially  worthy  of  notice  in  the  case  is,  the  very  definite 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  331 

beginning  and  ending  of  the  chain  of  bogs.  All  is  dry  at 
the  base  of  the  escarpment,  up  to  the  point  at  which  they 
commence ;  and  then  all  is  equally  dry  at  the  point  at 
which  they  terminate.  And  of  exactly  the  same  extent,  — 
beginning  where  the  bogs  begin,  and  ending  where  they 
end, — we  may  trace  an  ancient  stratum  of  pure  sand,  —  of 
considerable  thickness,  intercalated  between  the  base  of  the 
clay  and  the  superior  surface  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone. 
It  is  through  this  permeable  sand  that  the  profoundly 
seated  springs  find  their  way  to  the  surface, — for  the  clay 
is  impermeable ;  and  where  it  comes  in  contact  with  the 
rock  on  either  side  of  the  arenaceous  stratum,  the  bogs 
cease.  The  chain  of  green  bogs  is  a  consequence  of  the 
stratum  of  permeable  sand.  I  have  in  vain  sought  this 
ancient  layer  of  sand, — decidedly  of  the  same  era  with  the 
argillaceous  bed  which  overlies  it, — for  aught  organic.  A 
single  shell,  so  unequivocally  of  the  period  of  the  boulder- 
clay  as  to  occur  at  the  base  of  the  deposit,  would  be  worth, 
I  have  said,  whole  drawerfuls  of  fossils  furnished  by  the 
better-known  deposits.  But  I  have  since  seen  in  abundance 
shells  of  the  boulder-clay. 

There  is  another  scenic  peculiarity  of  the  clay,  which  the 
neighborhood  of  Cromarty  finely  illustrates,  and  of  which 
my  walk  this  morning  furnished  numerous  striking  in- 
stances. The  Giants'  Graves  —  to  borrow  from  the  chil- 
dren of  the  place — occur  on  the  steep  slopes  of  the  old 
coast  line,  or  in  the  sides  of  ravines,  where  the  clay,  as  I 
have  said,  had  once  presented  a  precipitous  front,  but  had 
been  gradually  moulded,  under  the  attritive  influences  of 
the  elements,  into  series  of  alternating  ridges  and  furrows, 
which,  when  they  had  flattened  into  the  proper  angle,  the 
green  sward  covered  up  from  further  waste.  But  the  deep 
dells  and  narrow  ravines  in  which  many  ranges  of  these 
graves  occur  are  themselves  peculiarities  of  the  deposit. 


332  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

Wherever  the  boulder-clay  lies  thick  and  continuous,  as  in 
the  parish  of  Cromarty,  on  a  sloping  table-land,  every 
minute  streamlet  cuts  its  way  to  the  solid  rock  at  the  bot- 
tom, and  runs  through  a  deep  dell,  either  softened  into 
beauty  by  the  disintegrating  process,  or  with  all  its  preci- 
pices standing  up  raw  and  abrupt  over  the  stream.  Four 
of  these  ravines,  known  as  the  "  Old  Chapel  Burn,"  the 
"Ladies'  Walk,"  the  "Morial's  Den,"  and  the  "Red  Burn," 
each  of  them  cutting  the  escarpment  of  the  ancient  coast 
line  from  top  to  base,  and  winding  far  into  the  ulterior, 
occur  in  little  more  than  a  mile's  space ;  and  they  lie  still 
more  thickly  farther  to  the  west.  These  dells  of  the  boul- 
der clay,  in  their  lower  windings, — for  they  become  shal- 
lower and  tamer  as  they  ascend,  till  they  terminate  in  the 
uplands  in  mere  drains,  such  as  a  ditcher  might  excavate 
at  the  rate  of  a  shilling  or  two  per  yard, — are  eminently 
picturesque.  On  those  gentler  slopes  where  the  vegetable 
mould  has  had  time  and  space  to  accumulate,  we  find  not  a 
few  of  the  finest  and  tallest  trees  of  the  district.  There  is 
a  bosky  luxuriance  in  their  more  sheltered  hollows,  well 
known  to  the  schoolboy  what  time  the  fern  begins  to  pale 
its  fronds,  for  their  store  of  hips,  sloes,  and  brambles ;  and 
red  over  the  foliage  we  may  see,  ever  and  anon  as  we  wend 
upwards,  the  abrupt  frontage  of  some  precipitous  scaur, 
suited  to  remind  the  geologist,  from  its  square  form  and 
flat  breadth  of  surface,  of  the  cliffs  of  the  chalk.  When 
viewed  from  the  sea,  at  the  distance  of  a  few  miles,  these 
ravines  seem  to  divide  the  sloping  tracts  in  which  they  oc- 
cur into  large  irregular  fields,  laid  out  considerably  more  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  landscape  gardener 
than  the  stiffly  squared  rectilinear  fields  of  the  agriculturist. 
They  are  ha-has  of  Nature's  digging ;  and  their  bottom 
and  sides  in  this  part  of  the  country  we  still  find  occupied 
in  a  few  cases  —  though  in  many  more  they  have  been  rav- 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.    .  333 

aged  by  the  wasteful  axe  —  by  noble  forest-hedges,  tall 
enough  to  overtop,  in  at  least  their  middle  reaches,  the 
tracts  of  table-land  which  they  divide. 

I  passed,  a  little  farther  on,  the  quarry  of  Old  Red 
Sandstone,  with  a  huge  bank  of  boulder-clay  resting  over 
it,  in  which  I  first  experienced  the  evils  of  hard  labor,  and 
first  set  myself  to  lessen  their  weight  by  becoming  an 
observer  of  geological  phenomena.  It  had  been  deserted 
apparently  for  many  years  ;  and  the  debris  of  the  clay  par- 
tially covered  up,  in  a  sloping  talus,  the  frontage  of  rock 
beneath.  Old  Red  Sandstone  and  boulder-clay,  a  broad 
bar  of  each  I  —  such  was  the  compound  problem  which  the 
excavation  propounded  to  me  when  I  first  plied  the  tool 
in  it,  —  a  problem  equally  dark  at  the  time  in  both  its 
parts.  I  have  since  got  on  a  very  little  way  with  the  Old 
Red  portion  of  the  task ;  but  alas  for  the  boulder-clay  por- 
tion of  it !  A  bar  of  impenetrable  shadow  has  rested  long 
and  obstinately  over  the  newer  deposit ;  and  I  scarce 
know  whether  the  light  which  is  at  length  beginning  to 
play  on  its  pebbly  front  be  that  of  the  sun  or  of  a  delusive 
meteor.  But  courage,  patient  hearts  !  the  boulder-clay 
will  one  day  yield  up  its  secret  too.  Still  further  on  by  a 
few  hundred  yards,  I  could  have  again  found  use  for  the 
calotype,  in  transferring  to  paper  the  likeness  of  a  pro- 
ttiberant  picturesque  cliff,  which,  like  the  Giants'  Graves, 
could  have  belonged,  of -all  our  Scotch  deposits,  to  only 
the  boulder-clay.  It  stands  out,  on  the  steep  acclivity  of 
a  furze-covered  bank,  abrupt  as  a  precipice  of  solid  rock, 
and  yet  seamed  by  the  rain  into  numerous  divergent  chan- 
nels, with  pyramidal  peaks  between;  and,  combining. the 
perpendicularity  of  a  true  cliff  with  the  water-scooped 
furrows  of  a  yielding  clay,  it  presents  a  peculiarity  of 
aspect  which  strikes,  by  its  grotesqueness,  eyes  little  accus- 
tomed to  detect  the  picturesque  in  landscape.  I  remember 


33-4  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

standing  to  gaze  upon  it  when  a  mere  child ;  and  the 
fisher  children  of  the  neighboring  town  still  tell  that  "  it 
has  been  prophesied "  it  will  one  day  fall,  "  and  kill  a  man 
and  a  horse  on  the  road  below,"  —  a  legend  which  shows 
it  must  have  attracted  their  notice  too. 

I  selected  as  the  special  scene  of  exploration  this  morn- 
ing, a  deep  ravine  of  the  boulder-clay,  which  had  been 
recently  deepened  still  more  by  the  Avaters  of  a  mill-pond, 
that  had  burst  during  a  thunder-shower,  and,  after  scoop- 
ing out  for  themselves  a  bed  in  the  clay  some  twelve  or 
fifteen  feet  deep,  where  there  had  been  formerly  merely  a 
shallow  drain,  had  then  tumbled  into  the  ravine,  and 
bared  it  to  the  rock.  The  sandstones  of  the  district,  soft 
and  not  very  durable,  show  the  scratched  and  polished 
surfaces  but  indifferently  well,  and,  when  exposed  to  the 
weather,  soon  lose  them ;  but  in  the  bottom  of  the  runnel 
by  which  the  ravine  is  swept  I  found  them  exceedingly 
well  marked,  —  the  polish  as  decided  as  the  soft  red  stone 
could  receive,  and  the  lines  of  scratching  running  in  their 
general  bearing  due  east  and  west,  at  nearly  right  angles 
with  the  course  of  the  stream.  "Wherever  the  rock  had 
been  laid  bare  during  the  last  few  months,  there  were  the 
markings  ;  wherever  it  had  been  laid  bare  for  a  few 
twelvemonths,  they  were  gone.  I  next  marked  a  circum- 
stance which  has  now  for  several  years  been  attracting  my 
attention,  and  which  I  have  found  an  invariable  character- 
istic of  the  true  boulder-clay.  Xot  only  do  the  rocks  on 
which  the  deposit  rests  bear  the  scratched  and  polished 
surfaces,  but  in  every  instance  the  fragments  of  stone 
which  it  incloses  bear  the  scratchings  also,  if  from  their 
character  capable  of  receiving  and  retaining  such  m ark- 
ings,  and  neither  of  too  coarse  a  grain  nor  of  too  hard  a 
quality.  If  of  limestone,  or  of  a  coherent  shale,  or  of  a 
close,  finely-grained  sandstone,  or  of  a  yielding  trap,  they 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  335 

are  scratched  and  polished, — invariably  on  one,  most  com- 
monly on  both  their  sides ;  and  it  is  a  noticeable  circum- 
stance, that  the  lines  of  the  scratchings  occur,  in  at  least 
nine  cases  out  of  every  ten,  in  the  lines  of  their  longer 
axes.  When  decidedly  oblong  or  spindle-shaped,  the 
scratchings  run  lengthwise,  preserving  in  most  cases, 
on  the  under  and  upper  sides,  when  both  surfaces  are 
scratched,  a  parallelism  singularly  exact;  whereas,  when 
of  a  broader  form,  so  that  the  length  and  breadth  nearly 
approximate,  —  though  the  lines  generally  find  out  the 
longer  axis,  and  run  in  that  direction,  —  they  are  less 
exact  in  their  parallelism,  and  are  occasionally  traversed 
by  cross  furrows.  Of  such  certain  occurrence  is  this  lon- 
gitudinal lining  on  the  softer  and  finer-grained  pebbles  of 
the  boulder-clay,  that  I  have  come  to  regard  it  as  that 
special  characteristic  of  the  deposit  on  which  I  can  most 
surely  rely  for  purposes  of  identification.  I  am  never 
quite  certain  of  the  boulder-clay  when  I  do  not  detect  it, 
nor  doubtful  of  the  true  character  of  the  deposit  when  I 
do.  When  examining,  for  instance,  the  accumulation  of 
broken  Liasic  materials  in  the  neighborhood  of  Banff,  I 
made  it  my  first  care  to  ascertain  whether  the  bank  in- 
closed fragments  of  stone  or  shale  bearing  the  longitudinal 
markings  ;  and  felt  satisfied,  on  finding  that  it  did,  that  I 
had  discovered  the  period  of  its  re-formation. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

Organisms  of  the  Boulder-clay  not  unequivocal  —  First  Impressions  of  the 
Boulder-clay  —  Difficulty  of  accounting  for  its  barrenness  of  Remains  —  Sir 
Charles  Lyell's  reasoning  —  A  Fact  to  the  contrary  —  Human  Skull  dug  from 
a  Clay-bank  —  The  Author's  Change  of  Belief  respecting  Organic  Remains 
of  the  Boulder-clay  —  Shells  from  the  Clay  at  Wick  —  Questions  respecting 
them  settled  —  Conclusions  confirmed  by  Mr.  Dick's  Discoveries  at  Thurso  — • 
Sir  John  Sinclair's  Discovery  of  Boulder-clay  Shells  in  1802  —  Comminution 
of  the  Shells  illustrated  —  Cyprina  islandica  —  Its  Preservation  in  larger  Pro- 
portions than  those  of  other  Shells  accounted  for  —  Boulder-clays  of  Scot- 
land reformed  during  the  existing  Geological  Epoch  —  Scotland  in  the  Period 
of  the  Boulder-clay  "  merely  three  detached  groups  of  Islands  "  —  Evidence 
of  the  Subsidence  of  the  Laud  in  Scotland  —  Confirmed  by  Rev.  Mr.  Cum- 
ming's  conclusion  —  High-lying  Granite  Boulders — Marks  of  a  succeeding 
elevatory  Period  —  Scandinavia  now  rising  —  Autobiography  of  a  Boulder 
desirable  —  A  Story  of  the  Supernatural. 

FOB  the  greater  part  of  a  quarter  of  a  centiny  I  had 
been  finding  organisms  in  abundance  in  the  boulder-clay, 
but  never  anything  organic  that  unequivocally  belonged  to 
its  own  period.  I  had  ascertained  that  it  contains  in  Ross 
and  Cromarty  nodules  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  which 
bear  inside,  like  so  many  stone  coffins,  their  well  laid  out 
skeletons  of  the  dead  ;  but  then  the  markings  on  their  sur- 
face told  me  that  when  the  boulder-clay  was  in  the  course 
of  deposition,  they  had  been  exactly  the  same  kind  of 
nodules  that  they  are  now.  In  Moray,  it  incloses,  I  had 
found,  organisms  of  the  Lias ;  but  they  also  testify  that 
they  present  an  appearance  in  no  degree  more  ancient  at 
the  present  time  than  they  did  when  first  enveloped  by  the 
clay.  In  East  and  West  Lothian  too,  and  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Edinburgh,  I  had  detected  in  it  occasional  organ- 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  337 

isms  of  the  Mountain  Limestone  and  the  Coal  Measures ; 
but  these,  not  less  surely  than  its  Liasic  fossils  in  Moray, 
and  its  Old  Red  ichthyolites  in  Cromarty  and  Ross,  be- 
longed to  an  incalculably  more  ancient  state  of  things  than 
itself;  and  —  like  those  shrivelled  manuscripts  of  Pompeii 
or  Herculaneum,  which,  whatever  else  they  may  record, 
cannot  be  expected  to  tell  aught  of  the  catastrophe  that 
buried  them  up  —  they  throw  no  light  whatever  on  the 
deposit  in  which  they  occur.  I  at  length  came  to  regard 
the  boulder-clay  —  for  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  mind  in  a 
purely  blank  state  on  any  subject  on  which  one  thinks  a 
good  deal  —  as  representative  of  a  chaotic  period  of  death 
and  darkness,  introductory,  mayhap,  to  the  existing  scene 
of  things. 

After,  however,  I  had  begun  to  mark  the  invariable  con- 
nection of  the  clay,  as  a  deposit,  with  the  dressed  surfaces 
on  which  it  rests,  and  the  longitudinal  linings  of  the  pebbles 
and  boulders  which  it  incloses,  and  to  associate  it,  in  conse- 
quence, with  an  ice-charged  sea  and  the  Great  Gulf  Stream, 
it  seemed  to  me  extremely  difficult  to  assign  a  reason  why 
it  should  be  thus  barren  of  remains.  Sir  Charles  Lyell 
states,  in  his  "  Elements,"  that  the  "  stranding  of  ice-islands 
in  the  bays  of  Iceland  since  1835  has  driven  away  the  fish 
for  several  successive  seasons,  and  thereby  caused  a  famine 
among  the  inhabitants  of  the  country;"  and  he  argues 
from  the  fact,  "  that  a  sea  habitually  infested  witli  melting 
ice,  which  would  chill  and  freshen  the  water,  might  render 
the  same  uninhabitable  by  marine  mollusca."  But  then, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  a  fact  that  half  a  million  of 
seals  have  been  killed  in  a  single  season  on  the  meadow-ice 
a  little  to  the  north  of  Newfoundland,  and  that  many  mil- 
lions of  cod,  besides  other  iish,  are  captured  yearly  on  the 
shores  of  that  island,  though  grooved  and  furrowed  by 
ice-floes  almost  every  spring.  Of  the  seal  family  it  is  spe- 

2) 


338  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

cially  recorded  by  naturalists,  that  many  of  the  species 
"  are  from  choice  inhabitants,  of  the  margins  of  the  frozen 
seas  towards  both  poles ;  and,  of  course,  in  localities  in 
which  many  such  animals  live,  some  must  occasionally  die." 
And  though  the  grinding  process  would  certainly  have 
disjointed,  and  might  probably  have  worn  down  and  par- 
tially mutilated,  the  bones  of  the  amphibious  carnivora  of 
the  boulder  period,  it  seems  not  in  the  least  probable,  judg- 
ing from  the  fragments  of  loose-grained  sandstone  and  soft 
shale  which  it  has  spared,  that  it  would  have  wholly  des- 
troyed them.  So  it  happened,  however,  that  from  North 
Berwick  .to  the  Ord  Hill  of  Caithness,  I  had  never  found 
in  the  boulder-clay  the  slightest  trace  of  an  organism  that 
could  be  held  to  belong  to  itself;  and  as  it  seems  natural 
to  build  on  negative  evidence,  if  very  extensive,  consid- 
erably more  than  mere  negative  evidence,  whatever  the 
circumstances,  will  cany,  I  became  somewhat  skeptical 
regarding  the  very  existence  of  bouldei'-ibssils, —  a  skepti- 
cism which  the  worse  than  doubtful  character  of  several 
supposed  discoveries  in  the  deposit  served  considerably  to 
strengthen.  The  clay  forms,  when  cut  by  a  water-course, 
or  assailed  on  the  coast  by  some  unusually  high  tide,  a 
perpendicular  precipice,  which  in  the  course  of  years  slopes 
into  a  talus ;  and  as  it  exhibits  in  most  instances  no  marks 
of  stratification,  the  clay  of  the  talus  —  a  mere  re-formation 
of  fragments  detached  by  the  frosts  and  rains  from  the 
exposed  frontage  —  can  rarely  be  distinguished  from  that 
of  the  original  deposit.  Now,  in  these  consolidated  slopes 
it  is  not  unusual  to  find  remains,  animal  and  vegetable,  of 
no  very  remote  antiquity.  I  have  seen  a  human  skull  dug 
out  of  the  reclining  base  of  a  clay-bank  once  a  precipice, 
fully  six  feet  from  under  the  surface.  It  might  have  been 
deemed  the  skull  of  some  long-lived  contemporary  of 
Enoch,  —  one  of  the  accursed  race,  mayhap, 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  339 

"  Who  sinned  and  died  before  the  avenging  flood." 

But,  alas !  the  laborer  dug  a  little  further,  and  struck  his 
pickaxe  against  an  old  rybat  that  lay  deeper  still.  There 
could  be  no  mistaking  the  character  of  the  champfered 
edge,  that  still  bore  the  marks  of  the  tool,  nor  that  of  the 
square  perforation  for  the  lock-bolt ;  and  a  rising  theory, 
that  would  have  referred  the  boulder-clay  to  a  period  in 
which  the  polar  ice,  set  loose  by  the  waters  of  the  Noachian  ' 
deluge,  came  floating  southwards  over  the  foundered  land, 
straightway  stumbled  against  it,  and  fell.  Both  rybat 
and  skull  had  come  from  an  ancient  burying-ground,  that 
occupies  a  projecting  angle  of  the  table-land  above.  I  must 
now  state,  however,  that  my  skepticism  has  thoroughly 
given  way;  and  that,  slowly  yielding  to  the  force  of  positive 
evidence,  I  have  become  as  assured  a  believer  in  the  com- 
minuted recent  shells  of  the  boulder-clay  as  in  the  belemnites 
of  the  Oolite  and  Lias,  or  the  ganoid  ichthyolites  of  the 
Old  Red  Sandstone. 

I  had  marked,  when  at  Wick,  on  several  occasions,  a 
thick  boulder-clay  deposit  occupying  the  southern  side  of 
the  harbor,  and  forming  an  elevated  platform,  on  which 
the  higher  parts  of  Pulteneytown  are  built ;  but  I  had 
noted  little  else  regarding  it  than  that  it  bears  the  average 
dark-gray  color  of  the  flagstones  of  the  district,  and  that 
some  of  the  granitic  boulders  which  protrude  from  its  top 
and  sides  are  of  vast  size.  On  my  last  visit,  however,  rather 
more  than  two  years  ago,  when  sauntering  along  its  base, 
after  a  very  wet  morning,  awaiting  the  Orkney  steamer,  I 
was  surprised  to  find,  where  a  small  slip  had  taken  place 
during  tlie  rain,  that  it  was  mottled  over  with  minute 
fragments  of  shells.  These  I  examined,  and  found,  so  far 
as,  in  their  extremely  broken  condition,  I  dared  determine 
the  point,  that  they  belonged  in  such  large  proportion  to 


340  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

one  species,  —  the  Cyprina  islandica  of  Dr.  Fleming, — 
that  I  could  detect  among  them  only  a  single  fragment  of 
any  other  shell,  —  the  pillar,  apparently,  of  a  large  specimen 
of  Purpura  lapillus.  Both  shells  belong  to  that  class  of 
old  existences,  —  long  descended,  without  the  pride  of 
ancient  descent,  —  which  link  on  the  extinct  to  the  recent 
scenes  of  being.  Cyprina  islandica  and  Piirpiira  lapillus 
not  only  exist  as  living  molluscs  in  the  British  seas,  but 
they  occur  also  as  crag-shells,  side  by  side  with  the  dead 
races  that  have  no  place  in  the  present  fauna.  At  this 
time,  however,  I  could  but  think  of  them  simply  in  their 
character  as  recent  molluscs ;  and  as  it  seemed  quite  start- 
ling enough  to  find  them  in  a  deposit  which  I  had  once 
deemed  representative  of  a  period  of  death,  and  still  con- 
tinued to  regard  as  obstinately  unfossiliferous,  I  next  set 
myself  to  determine  whether  it  really  was  the  boulder-clay 
in  which  they  occurred.  Almost  the  first  pebble  which  I 
disengaged  from  the  mass,  however,  settled  the  point,  by 
furnishing  the  evidence  on  which  for  several  years  past  I 
have  been  accustomed  to  settle  it ;  —  it  bore  in  the  line  of 
its  longer  axis,  .on  a  polished  surface,  the  freshly-marked 
grooves  and  scratchings  of  the  iceberg  era.  Still,  however, 
I  had  my  doubts,  not  regarding  the  deposit,  but  the  shells. 
Might  they  not  belong  merely  to  the  talus  of  this  bank  of 
boulder-clay?  —  a  re-formation,  in  all  probability,  not  more 
ancient  than  the  elevation  of  the  most  recent  of  the  old 
coast  lines,  —  perhaps  greatly  less  so.  Meeting  with  an 
intelligent  citizen  of  Wick,  Mr.  John  Cleghorn,  I  requested 
him  to  keep  a  vigilant  eye  on  the  shells,  and  to  ascertain 
for  me,  when  opportunity  offered,  whether  they  occurred 
deep  in  the  deposit,  or  were  restricted  to  merely  the  base 
of  its  exposed  front.  On  my  return  from  Orkney,  he  kindly 
brought  me  a  small  collection  of  fragments,  exclusively,  so 
for  as  I  could  judge,  of  Cyprina.  island!  ea>  picked  up  in 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  341 

fresh  sections  of  the  clay ;  at  the  same  time  expressing  his 
belief  that  they  really  belonged  to  the  deposit  as  such,  and 
were  not  accidental  introductions  into  it  from  the  adjacent 
shore.  And  at  this  point  for  nearly  two  years  the  matter 
rested,  when  my  attention  was  again  called  to  it  by  finding, 
in  the  publication  of  Mr.  Keith  Johnston's  admirable  Geo- 
logical Map  of  the  British  Islands,  edited  by  Professor 
Edward  Forbes,  that  other  eyes  than  mine  had  detected 
shells  in  the  boulder-clay  of  Caithness.  "  Cliffs  of  Pleisto- 
cene," says  the  Professor,  in  one  of  his  notes  attached  to 
the  map,  "  occur  at  Wick,  containing  boreal  shells,  espe- 
cially Astarte  borealis" 

I  had  seen  the  boulder-clay  characteristically  developed 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Thurso ;  but,  during  a  rather  hur- 
ried visit,  had  lacked  time  to  examine  it.  The  omission 
mattered  the  less,  however,  as  my  friend  Mr.  Robert  Dick 
is  resident  in  the  locality;  and  there  are  few  men  who 
examine  more  carefully  or  more  perseveringly  than  he,  or 
who  can  enjoy  with  higher  relish  the  sweets  of  scientific 
research.  I  Avrote  him  regarding  Professor  Forbes's  decis- 
ion on  the  boulder-clay  of  Wick  and  its  shells;  urging 
him  to  ascertain  whether  the  boulder-clay  of  Thurso  had 
not  its  shells  also.  And  almost  by  return  of  post  I 
received  from  him,  in  reply,  a  little  packet  of  comminuted 
shells,  dug  out  of  a  deposit  of  the  boulder-clay,  laid  open 
by  the  river  Thorsa,  a  full  mile  from  the  sea,  and  from 
eighty  to  a  hundred  feet  over  its  level.  He  had  detected 
minute  fragments  of  shell  in  the  clay  about  a  twelve- 
month before ;  but  a  skepticism  somewhat  similar  to  my 
own,  added  to  the  dread  of  being  deceived  by  mere  sur- 
face shells,  recently  derived  from  the  shore  in  the  charac- 
ter of  shell-sand,  or  of  the  edible  species  earned  inland  for 
food,  and  then  transferred  from  the  ash-pit  to  the  fields, 
had  not  only  prevented  him  from  following  up  the  dis- 
29* 


342  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

covery,  but  even  from  thinking  of  it  as  such.  But  ho 
eagerly  followed  it  up  now,  by*visiting  every  bank  of  the 
boulder-clay  in  his  locality  within  twenty  miles  of  Thurso, 
and  found  them  all  charged,  from  top  to  bottom,  with 
comminuted  shells,  however  great  their  distance  from  the 
sea,  or  their  elevation  over  it.  The  fragments  lie  thick 
along  the  course  of  the  Thorsa,  where  the  encroaching 
stream  is  scooping  out  the  clay  for  the  first  time  since  its 
deposition,  and  laying  bare  the  scratched  and  furrowed 
pebbles.  They  occur,  too,  in  the  depths  of  solitary  ravines 
far  amid  the  moors,  and  underlie  heath,  and  moss,  and 
vegetable  mould,  on  the  exposed  hill-sides.  The  farm- 
house of  Dalemore,  twelve  miles  from  Thurso  as  the  crow 
flies,  and  rather  more  than  thirteen  miles  from  Wick,  occu- 
pies, as  nearly  as  may  be,  the  centre  of  the  county  ;  and 
yet  there,  as  on  the  sea-shore,  the  boulder-clay  is  charged 
with  its  fragments  of  marine  shells.  Though  so  barren 
elsewhere  on  the  east  coast  of  Scotland,  the  clay  is  every- 
where in  Caithness  a  shell-bearing  deposit ;  and  no  sooner 
had  Mr.  Dick  determined  the  fact  for  himself,  at  the 
expense  of  many  a  fatiguing  journey,  and  many  an  hour's 
hard  digging  than  he  found  that  it  had  been  ascertained 

OO        O' 

long  before,  though,  from  the  very  inadequate  style  in 
which  it  had  been  recorded,  science  had  in  scarce  any 
degree  benefited  by  the  discovery.  In  1802  the  late  Sir 
John  Sinclair,  distinguished  for  his  enlightened  zeal  in 
developing  the  agricultural  resources  of  the  country,  and 
for  originating  its  statistics,  employed  a  mineralogical  sur- 
veyor to  explore  the  underground  treasures  of  the  district; 
and  the  surveyor's  journal  he  had  printed  under  the  title 
of  "Minutes  and  Observations  drawn  up  in  the  course  of  a 
Mineralogical  Survey  of  the  County  of  Caithness,  aim.  1802^ 
by  John  Busby,  Edinburgh."  Now,  in  this  journal  there 
are  frequent  references  made  to  the  occurrence  of  marine 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  843 

shells  in  the  blue  clay.  Mr.  Dick  has  copied  for  me  the 
two  following  entries,  —  for  the  work  itself  I  have  never 
seen  :  —  "1 802,  Sept.  7th.  —  Surveyed  down  the  river 
[Thorsa]  to  Geize ;  found  blue  clay-marl,  intermixed  with 
marine  shells  in  great  abundance."  "Sept.  12th.  —  Set 
off  this  morning  for  Dalemore.  Bored  for  shell-marl  in 
the  'grass-park;'  found  it  in  one  of  the  quagmires,  but  to 
no  great  extent.  Bored  for  shell-marl  in  the  'house-park.' 
Surveyed  by  the  side  of  the  river,  and  found  blue  clay- 
marl  in  great  plenty,  intermixed  with  marine  shells,  such 
as  those  found  at  Geize.  This  place  is  supposed  to  be 
about  twenty  miles  from  the  sea;  and  is  one  instance, 
among  many  in  Caithness,  of  the  ocean's  covering  the 
inland  country  at  some  former  period  of  time" 

The  state  of  keeping  in  which  the  boulder-shells  of 
Caithness  occur  is  exactly  what,  on  the  iceberg  theory, 
might  be  premised.  The  ponderous  ice-rafts  that  went 
grating  over  the  deep-sea  bottom,  grinding  down  its  rocks 
into  clay,  and  deeply  furroAving  its  pebbles,  must  have 
borne  heprily  on  its  comparatively  fragile  shells.  If  rocks 
and  pebbles  did  not  escape,  the  shells  must  have  fared  but 
hardly.  And  very  hardly  they  have  fared:  the  rather 
unpleasant  casualty  of  being  crushed  to  death  must  have 
been  a  greatly  more  common  one  in  those  days  than  in 
even  the  present  age  of  railways  and  machinery.  The 
reader,  by  passing  half  a  bushel  of  the  common  shells  of 
our  shores  through  a  barley-mill,  as  a  preliminary  opera- 
tion in  the  process,  and  by  next  subjecting  the  broken 
fragments  thus  obtained  to  the  attritive  influence  of  the 
waves  on  some  storm-beaten  beach  for  a  twelve-month  or 
two,  as  a  finishing  operation,  may  produce,  when  he 
pleases,  exactly  such  a  water-worn  shelly  debris  as  mottles 
the  blue  boulder-clays  of  Caithness.  The  proportion 
borne  by  the  fragments  of  one  species  of  shell  to  that  of 


344  RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

all  the  others  is  very  extraordinary.  The  Cyprina  island- 
tea  is  still  by  no  means  a  rare  mollusc  on  our  Scottish 
shores,  and  may,  on  an  exposed  coast,  after  a  storm,  be 
picked  up  by  dozens,  attached  to  the  roots  of  the  deep-sea 
tangle.  It  is  greatly  less  abundant,  however,  than  such 
shells  as  Purpura  lapillus,  Mytilus  edule,  Cardium  edule, 
Littorina  littorea,  and  several  others;  whereas  in  the 
boulder-clay  it  is,  in  the  proportion  of  at  least  ten  to  one,! 
more  abundant  than  all  the  others  put  together.  The 
great  strength  of  the  shell,  however,  may  have  in  part  led 
to  this  result ;  as  I  find  that  its  stronger  and  massier  por- 
tions,—  those  of  the  umbo  and  hinge-joint,  —  are  exceed- 
ingly numerous  in  proportion  to  its  slimmer  and  weaker 
fragments.  "  The  Cyprina  islandica"  says  Dr.  Fleming, 
in  his  "  British  Animals,"  "  is  the  largest  British  bivalve 
shell,  measuring  sometimes  thirteen  inches  in  circumfer- 
ence, and,  exclusively  of  the  animal,  weighing  upwards  of 
nine  ounces."  KOAV,  in  a  collection  of  fragments  of 
Cyprina  sent  me  by  Mr.  Dick,  disinterred  from  the 
boulder-clay  in  various  localities  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Thurso,  and  weighing  in  all  about  four  ounces,  I  have 
detected  the  broken  remains  of  no  fewer  than  sixteen 
hinge  joints.  And  on  the  same  principle  through  which 
the  stronger  fragments  of  Cyprina  were  preserved  in  so 
much  larger  proportion  than  the  weaker  ones,  may  Cyprina 
itself  have  been  preserved  in  much  larger  proportion  than 
its  more  fragile  neighbors.  Occasionally,  however, — 
escaped,  as  if  by  accident,  —  characteristic  fragments  are 
found  of  shells  by  no  means  very  strong,  —  such  as  Myti- 
lus,  Tettina,  and  Astarte.  Among  the  univalves  I  can  dis- 
tinguish Dentaliiun  entale,  Purpura  lapillus,  Turritella 
terebra,  and  Littorina  littorea,  all  existing  shells,  but  all 
common  also  to  at  least  the  later  deposits  of  the  Crag. 
And  among  the  bivalves  Mr.  Dick  enumerates,  —  besides 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  345 

the  prevailing  Cyprina  islandica, —  Venus  casina,  Car- 
dium  edule,  Cardiiim  echinatum^  Mytihts  editle,  Astarte 
dcmmoniensis  (sulcata),  and  Astarte  compressa,  with  a 
Mactra^  Artemis,  and  Tettina.*  All  the  determined  spe- 
cies here,  with  the  exception  of  Mytilus  edule,  have,  with 
many  others,  been  found  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gumming  in  the 
boulder-clays  of  the  Isle  of  Man ;  and  all  of  them  are  liv- 
ing shells  at  the  present  day  on  our  Scottish  coasts.  It 
seems  scarce  possible  to  fix  the  age  of  a  deposit  so  broken 
in  its  organisms,  on  the  principle  that  would  first  seek  to 
determine  its  per  centage  of  extinct  shells  as  the  data  on 
which  to  found.  One  has  to  search  sedulously  and  long 
ere  a  fragment  turns  up  sufficiently  entire  for  the  purpose 
of  specific  identification,  even  when  it  belongs  to  a  well- 
known  living  shell ;  and  did  the  clay  contain  some  six  or 
eight  per  cent,  of  the  extinct  in  a  similarly  broken  condi- 
tion (and  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  contains  a  single  per 
cent,  of  extinct  shells),  I  know  not  how,  in  the  circum- 
stances, the  fact  could  ever  be  determined.  A  lifetime 
might  be  devoted  to  the  task  of  fixing  their  real  propor- 
tion, and  yet  be  devoted  to  it  in  vain.  All  that  at  present 
can  be  said  is,  that,  judging  from  what  appears,  the 
boulder-clays  of  Caithness,  and  with  them  the  boulder-clays 
of  Scotland  generally,  and  of  the  Isle  of  Man,  —  for  they 
are  all  palpably  connected  with  the  same  iceberg  phenom- 
ena, and  occur  along  the  same  zone  in  reference  to  the  sea- 
level,  —  were  formed  during  the  existing  geological  epoch. 
These  details  may  appear  tediously  minute ;  but  let  the 
reader  mark  how  very  much  they  involve.  The  occurrence 
of  recent  shells  largely  diffused  throughout  the  boulder- 
clays  of  Caithness,  at  all  heights  and  distances  from  the  sea 

*  Mr.  Dick  has  since  disinterred  from  out  the  boulder-clays  of  the  Burn 
of  Freswick,  Patella  vulgata,  Buccinum  undatum,  Fesus  antiquus,  Rostel- 
laria,  Pes  pelicana,  a  Natica,  Lutrariu,  and  Balanus. 


846  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

at  which  the  clay  itself  occurs,  and  not  only  connected  with 
the  iceberg  phenomena  by  the  closest  juxtaposition,  but  also 
testifying  distinctly  to  its  agency  by  the  extremely  com- 
minuted state  in  which  we  find  them,  tell  us,  not  only 
according  to  old  John  Busby,  "  that  the  ocean  covered  the 
inland  country  at  some  former  period  of  time,"  but  that  it 
covered  it  to  a  great  height  at  a  time  geologically  recent, 
when  our  seas  were  inhabited  by  exactly  the  same  mollusca 
as  inhabit  them  now,  and  so  far  as  yet  appears,  by  none 
others.  I  have  not  yet  detected  the  boulder-clay  at  more 
than  from  six  to  eight  hundred  feet  over  the  level  of  the 
sea ;  but  the  travelled  boulders  I  have  often  found  at  more 
than  a  thousand  feet  over  it ;  and  Dr.  John  Fleming,  the 
correctness  of  whose  observations  few  men  acquainted  with 
the  character  of  his  researches  or  of  his  mind  will  be  dis- 
posed to  challenge,  has  informed  me  that  he  has  detected 
the  dressed  and  polished  surfaces  at  least  four  hundred  feet 
higher.  There  occurs  a  greenstone  boulder,  of  from  twelve 
to  fourteen  tons  weight,  says  Mr.  M'Laren,  in  his  "  Geology 
of  Fife  and  the  Lothians,"  on  the  south  side  of  Black  Hill 
(one  of  the  Pentland  range),  at  about  fourteen  hundred  feet 
over  the  sea.  Now  fourteen  or  fifteen  hundred  feet,  taken 
as  the  extreme  height  of  the  dressings,  though  they  are  said 
to  occur  greatly  higher,  would  serve  to  submerge  in  the  ice- 
berg ocean  almost  the  whole  agricultural  region  of  Scotland. 
The  common  hazel  ( Corylus  avdlana)  ceases  to  grow  in 
the  latitude  of  the  Grampians,  at  from  one  thousand  two 
hundred  to  one  thousand  five  hundred  feet  over  the  sea 
level ;  the  common  bracken  (Pteris  aquilina)  at  about  the 
same  height ;  and  com  is  never  successfully  cultivated  at  a 
greater  altitude.  Where  the  hazel  and  bracken  cease  to 
grow,  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt  growing  corn.*  In  the  period 

*  That  similarity  of  condition  in  which  the  hazel  and  the  harrier  cerealia 
thrive  was  noted  by  our  north-country  farmers  of  the  old  School,  long  ere 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  347 

of  the  boulder-clay,  then,  when  the  existing  shells  of  our 
coasts  lived  in  those  inland  sounds  and  friths  of  the  country 
that  now  exist  as  broad  plains  or  fertile  valleys,  the  sub- 
terial  superficies  of  Scotland  wras  restricted  to  what  are  now 
its  barren  and  mossy  regions,  and  formed,  instead  of  one 
continuous  land,  merely  three  detached  groups  of  islands, — 
the  small  Cheviot  and  Hartfell  group,  —  the  greatly  larger 
Grampian  and  Ben  Nevis  group,  —  and  a  group  inter- 
mediate in  size,  extending  from  Mealfourvonny,  on  the 
northern  shores  of  Loch  Ness,  to  the  Maiden  Paps  of 
Caithness. 

The  more  ancient  boulder-clays  of  Scotland  seem  to  have 
been  formed  when  the  land  was  undergoing  a  slow  process 
of  subsidence,  or,  as  I  should  perhaps  rather  say,  when  a 
very  considerable  area  of  the  earth's  surface,  including  the 
sea-bottom,  as  well  as  the  eminences  that  rose  over  it,  was 
the  subject  of  a  gradual  depression ;  for  little  or  no  altera- 
tion appears  to  have  taken  place  at  the  time  in  the  relative 
levels  of  the  higher  and  lower  portions  of  the  sinking  area : 
the  features  of  the  land  in  the  northern  part  of  the  kingdom, 
from  the  southern  flanks  of  the  Grampians  to  the  Pentland 
Frith,  seemed  to  have  been  fixed  in  nearly  the  existing 
forms  many  ages  before,  at  the  close,  apparently,  of  the 
Oolitic  period,  and  at  a  still  earlier  age  in  the  Lammermuir 
district,  to  the  south.  And  so  the  sea  around  our  shores 
must  have  deepened  in  the  ratio  in  which  the  hills  sank. 
The  evidence  of  this  process  of  subsidence  is  of  a  character 
tolerably  satisfactory.  The  dressed  surfaces  occur  in  Scot- 
land, most  certainly,  as  I  have  already  stated  on  the 
authority  of  Dr.  Fleming,  at  the  height  of  fourteen  hundred 
feet  over  the  present  sea-level ;  it  has  been  even  said,  at 

it  had  been  recorded  by  the  botanist.  Hence  such  remarks,  familiarized 
into  proverbs,  as  "  A  good  nut  year's  a  good  ait  year;  "  or,  "  As  the  nut 
iill.-i  the  nit  nils." 


34:8  BAilBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

fully  twice  that  height,  on  the  lofty  flanks  of  Schehallion, — 
a  statement,  however,  which  I  have  had  hitherto  no  oppor- 
tunity of  verifying.  They  may  be  found,  too,  equally  well 
marked,  under  the  existing  high-water  line ;  and  it  is  obvi- 
ously impossible  that  the  dressing  process  could  have  been 
going  on  at  the  higher  and  lower  levels  at  the  same  time. 
When  the  icebergs  were  grating  along  the  more  elevated 
rocks,  the  low-lying  ones  must  have  been  buried  under 
from  three  to  seven  hundred  fathoms  of  water,  —  a  depth 
from  three  to  seven  times  greater,  be  it  remembered,  than 
that  at  which  the  most  ponderous  iceberg  could  possibly 
have  grounded,  or  have  in  any  degree  affected  the  bottom. 
The  dressing  process,  then,  must  have  been  a  bit-and-bit 
process,  carried  on  during  either  a  period  of  elevation,  in 
which  the  rising  land  was  subjected,  zone  after  zone,  to  the 
sweep  of  the  armed  ice  from  its  higher  levels  downwards,  or 
during  a  period  of  subsidence,  in  which  it  was  subjected  to 
the  ice,  zone  after  zone,  from  its  lower  levels  upwards. 
And  that  it  was  the  lower,  not  the  higher  levels,  that  were 
first  dressed,  appears  evident  from  the  circumstance,  that 
thaugh  on  these  lower  levels  we  find  the  rocks  covered  up 
by  continuous  beds  of  the  boulder-clay,  varying  generally 
from  twenty  to  a  hundred  feet  in  thickness,  they  are,  not- 
withstanding, as  completely  dressed  under  the  clay  as  on 
the  heights  above.  Had  it  been  a  rising  land  that  was  sub- 

o  o 

jected  to  the  attrition  of  the  icebergs,  the  debris  and  dress- 
ings of  the  higher  rocks  would  have  protected  the  lower 
from  the  attrition;  and  so  the  thick  accumulation  of 
boulder-clay  which  overlies  the  old  coast  line,  for  instance, 
would  have  rested,  not  on  dressed,  but  on  undressed  sur- 
faces. The  barer  rocks  of  the  lower  levels  might  of  course 
exhibit  their  scratchings  and  polishings,  like  those  of  the 
higher;  but  wherever  these  scratchings  and  polishings 
occurred  in  the  inferior  zones,  no  thick  protecting  stratum 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  349 

of  boulder-clay  would  be  found  ovei'lying  them;  and,  vice 
versa,  wherever  in  these  zones  there  occurred  thick  beds  of 
boulder-clay,  there  would  be  detected  on  the  rock  beneath 
no  scratchings  and  polishings.  In  order  to  dress  the  entire 
surface  of  a  country  from  the  sea-line  and  under  it  to  the 
tops  of  its  hills,  and  at  the  same  time  to  cover  up  extensive 
portions  of  its  low-lying  rocks  with  vast  deposits  of  clay,  it 
seems  a  necessary  condition  of  the  process  that  it  should  be 
carried  on  piece-meal  from  the  lower  level  upwards,  —  not 
from  the  higher  downwards. 

It  interested  me  much  to  find,  that  while  from  one  set 
of  appearances  I  had  been  inferring  the  gradual  subsidence 
of  the  land  during  the  period  of  the  boulder-clay,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Cummincc  of  King  William's  College  had  arrived, 

o  o  o  * 

from  the  consideration  of  quite  a  different  class  of  phe- 
nomena, at  a  similar  conclusion.  "  It  appears  to  me  highly 
probable,"  I  find  him  remarking,  in  his  lately  published 
"  Isle  of  man,"  "  that  at  the  commencement  of  the  boulder 
period  there  was  a  gradual  sinking  of  this  area  [that  of 
the  island].  Successively,  therefore,  the  points  at  different 
degrees  of  elevation  were  brought  within  the  influence  of 
the  sea,  and  exposed  to  the  rake  of  the  tides,  charged 
with  masses  of  ice  which  had  been  floated  off  from  the 
surrounding  shores,  and  bearing  on  their  under  surfaces, 
mud,  gravel,  and  fragments  of  hard  rock."  Mr.  Gumming 
goes  on  to  describe,  in  his  volume,  some  curious  appear- 
ances, which  seem  to  bear  direct  on  this  point,  in  con- 
nection with  a  boss  of  a  peculiarly-compounded  granite, 
which  occurs  in  the  southern  part  of  the  island,  about 
seven  hundred  feet  over  the  level  of  the  sea.  There  rise 
on  the  western  side  of  the  boss  two  hills,  one  of  which 
attains  to  the  elevation  of  nearly  seven  hundred,  and  the 
other  of  nearly  eight  hundred  feet  over  it ;  and  yet  both 
hills  to  their  summits  are  mottled  over  with  granite  boul- 
30 


350  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

ders,  furnished  by  the  comparatively  low-lying  boss.  One 
of  these  travelled  masses,  fully  two  tons  in  weight,  lies 
not  sixty  feet  from  the  summit  of  the  loftier  hill,  at  an 
altitude  of  nearly  fifteen  hundred  feet  over  the  sea.  Now, 
it  seems  extremely  difficult  to  conceive  of  any  other 
agency  than  that  of  a  rising  sea  or  of  a  subsiding  land, 
through  which  these  masses  could  have  been  rolled  up  the 
steep  slopes  of  the  hills.  Had  the  boulder  period  been  a 
period  of  elevation,  or  merely  a  stationary  period,  during 
which  the  land  neither  rose  nor  sank,  the  travelled  boul- 
ders would  not  now  be  found  resting  at  higher  levels 
than  that  of  the  parent  rock  whence  they  were  derived. 
We  occasionally  meet  on  our  shores,  after  violent  storms 
from  the  sea,  stones  that  have  been  rolled  from  their  place 
at  low  ebb  to  nearly  the  line  of  flood ;  but  we  always  find 
that  it  was  by  the  waves  of  the  rising,  not  of  the  falling 
tide,  that  their  transport  was  effected.  For  whatever 
removals  of  the  kind  take  place  during  an  ebbing  sea  are 
invariably  in  an  opposite  direction;  —  they  are  removals, 
not  from  lower  to  higher  levels,  but  from  higher  to  lower. 
The  upper  subsoils  of  Scotland  bear  frequent  mark  of 
the  clevatory  period  which  succeeded  this  period  of  de- 
pression. The  boulder-clay  has  its  numerous  intercalated 
arenaceous  and  gravelly  beds,  which  belong  evidently  to 
its  own  era ;  but  the  numerous  surface-beds  of  stratified 
sand  and  gravel  by  "which  in  so  many  localities  it  is  over- 
laid belong  evidently  to  a  later  time.  When,  after  possi- 
bly a  long  protracted  period,  the  land  again  began  to  rise, 
or  the  sea  to  fall,  the  superior  portions  of  the  boulder-clay 
must  have  been  exposed  to  the  action  of  the  tides  and 
waves ;  and  the  same  process  of  separation  of  parts  must 
have  taken  place  on  a  large  scale,  which  one  occasionally 
sees  taking  place  in  the  present  time  on  a  comparatively 
small  one,  in  ravines  of  the  same  clay  swept  by  a  stream- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  351 

let.  After  every  shower,  the  stream  comes  down  red  and 
turbid  with  the  finer  and  more  argillaceous  portions  of  the 
deposit ;  minute  accumulations  of  sand  are  swept  to  the 
gorge  of  the  ravine,  or  cast  down  in  ripple-marked  patches 
in  its  deeper  pools ;  beds  of  pebbles  and  gravel  are  heaped 
up  in  every  inflection  of  its  banks ;  and  boulders  are  laid 
bare  along  its  sides.  Now,  a  separation,  by  a  sort  of  wash- 
ing process  of  an  analogous  character,  must  have  taken 
place  in  the  materials  of  the  more  exposed  portions  of  the 
boulder-clay,  during  the  gradual  emergence  of  the  land ; 
and  hence,  apparently,  those  extensive  beds  of  sand  and 
gravel  which  in  so  many  parts  of  the  kingdom  exist,  in 
relation  to  the  clay,  as  a  superior  or  upper  subsoil ;  hence, 
too,  occasional  beds  of  a  purer  clay  than  that  beneath, 
divested  of  a  considerable  portion  of  its  arenaceous  com- 
ponents, and  of  almost  all  its  pebbles  and  boulders.  This 
teas /ted  clay,  —  a  re-formation  of  the  boulder  deposit,  cast 
down,  mostly  in  insulated  beds  in  qxiiet  localities,  where 
the  absence  of  currents  suffered  the  purer  particles  held  in 
suspension  by  the  water  to  settle,  —  forms,  in  Scotland  at 
least,  with,  of  course,  the  exception  of  the  ancient  fire- 
clays of  the  Coal  Measures,  the  true  brick  and  tile  clays 
of  the  agriculturist  and  architect. 

It  is  to  these  superior  beds  that  all  the  recent  shells  yet 
found  above  the  existing  sea-level  in  Scotland,  from  the 
Dornoch  Frith  and  beyond  it,  to  beyond  the  Frith  of 
Forth,  seem  to  belong.  Their  period  is  much  less  remote 
than  that  of  the  shells  of  the  boulder-clay,  and  they  rarely 
occur  in  the  same  comminuted  condition.  They  existed, 
it  would  appear,  not  during  the  chill  twilight  period,  when 
the  land  was  in  a  state  of  subsidence,  biit  during  the  after 
period  of  cheerful  dawn,  when  hill-top  after  hill-top  was 
emerging  from  the  deep,  and  the  close  of  each  passing 
century  witnessed  a  broader  area  of  dryland  in  what  is 


352  KAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

now  Scotland,  than  the  close  of  the  century  which  had 
gone  before.  Scandinavia  is  similarly  rising  at  the  present 
day,  and  presents  with  every  succeeding  age  a  more  ex- 
tended breadth  of  surface.  Many  of  the  boulder-stones 
seem  to  have  been  cast  down  where  they  now  lie,  during 
this  latter  time.  When  they  occur,  as  in  many  instances, 
high  on  bare  hill-tops,  from  five  to  fifteen  hundred  feet 
over  the  sea-level,  with  neither  gravel  nor  boulder-clay 
beside  them,  we  of  course  cannot  fix  their  period.  They 
may  have  been  dropped  by  ice-floes  or  shore-ice,  where 
we  now  find  them,  at  the  commencement  of  the  period  of 
elevation,  after  the  clay  had  been  formed ;  or  they  may 
have  been  deposited  by  more  ponderous  icebergs  during 
its  formation,  when  the  land  was  yet  sinking,  though  dur- 
ing the  subsequent  rise  the  clay  may  have  been  washed 
from  around  them  to  lower  levels.  The  boulders,  how- 
ever, which  we  find  scattered  over  the  plains  and  less 
elevated  hill-sides,  with  beds  of  the  washed  gravel  or 
sand  interposed  between  them  and  the  clay,  must  have 
been  cast  down  where  they  lie,  during  the  elevatory  ages. 
For,  had  they  been  washed  out  of  the  clay,  they  would 
have  lain,  not  over  the  greatly  lighter  sands  and  gravels, 
but  under  them.  Would  that  they  could  write  their  own 
histories!  The  autobiography  of  a  single  boulder,  with 
notes  on  the  various  floi'as  which  had  sprung  up  around  it, 
and  the  various  classes  of  birds,  beasts,  and  insects  by 
which  it  had  been  visited,  would  be  worth  nine-tenths  of 
all  the  autobiographies  ever  published,  and  a  moiety  of 
the  remainder  to  boot. 

A  few  hundred  yards  from  the  opening  of  this  dell  of 
the  boulder-clay,  in  which  I  have  so  long  detained  the 
reader,  there  is  a  wooded  inflection  of  the  bank,  formed 
by  the  old  coast  line,  in  which  there  stood,  about  two  cen- 
turies ago,  a  meal-mill,  with  the  cottage  of  the  miller,  and 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  853 

which  was  once  known  as  the  scene  of  one  of  those  super- 
naturalities  that  belong  to  the  times  of  the  witch  and  the 
fairy.  The  upper  anchoring-place  of  the  bay  lies  nearly 
opposite  the  inflection.  A  shipmaster,  who  had  moored 
his  vessel  in  this  part  of  the  roadstead,  some  time  in  the 
latter  days  of  the  first  Charles,  Avas  one  fine  evening  sit- 
ting alone  on  deck,  awaiting  the  return  of  his  seamen, 
who  had  gone  ashore,  and.  amusing  himself  in  watching 
the  lights  that  twinkled  from  the  scattei-ed  farm-houses, 
and  in  listening,  in  the  extreme  stillness  of  the  calm,  to 
the  distant  lowing  of  cattle,  or  the  abrupt  bark  of  the 
herdsman's  dog.  As  the  hour  wore  later,  the  sounds 
ceased,  and  the  lights  disappeared,  —  all  but  one  solitary 
taper,  that  twinkled  from  the  window  of  the  miller's  cot- 
tage. At  length,  however,  it  also  disappeared,  and  all  was 
dark  around  the  shores  of  the  bay,  as  a  belt  of  black  vel- 
vet. Suddenly  a  hissing  noise  was  heard  overhead ;  the 
shipmaster  looked  up,  and  saw  what  seemed  to  be  one  of 
those  meteors  known  as  falling  stars,  slanting  athwart  the 
heavens  in  the  direction  of  the  cottage,  and  increasing  in 
size  and  brilliancy  as  it  neared  the  earth,  until  the  wooded 
ridge  and  the  shore  could  be  seen  as  distinctly  from 
the  ship-deck  as  by  day.  A  dog  howled  piteously  from 
one  of  the  out-houses,  —  an  owl  whooped  from  the  wood. 
The  meteor  descended  until  it  almost  touched  the  roof, 
when  a  cock  crew  from  within;  its  progress  seemed  in- 
stantly arrested ;  it  stood  still,  rose  about  the  height  of  a 
ship's  mast,  and  then  began  again  to  descend.  The  cock 
crew  a  second  time  ;  it  rose  as  before  ;  and,  after  mounting 
considerably  higher  than  at  first,  again  sank  in  the  line  of 
the  cottage,  to  be  again  arrested  by  the  crowing  of  the 
cock.  It  mounted  yet  a  third  time,  rising  higher  still; 
and,  in  its  last  descent,  had  almost  touched  the  roof,  when 
the  faint  clap  of  wings  was  heard  as  if  whispered  over  the 
30* 


354  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

water,  followed  by  a  still  louder  note  of  defiance  from  tho 
cock.  The  meteor  rose  with  a  bound,  and,  continuing  to 
ascend  until  it  seemed  lost  among  the  stars,  did  not  again 
appear.  Next  night,  however,  at  the  same  hour,  the  same 
scene  was  repeated  in  all  its  circumstances :  the  meteor 
descended,  the  dog  howled,  the  OAV!  whooped,  the  cock 
crew.  On  the  following  morning  the  shipmaster  visited 
the  miller's,  and,  curious  to  ascertain  how  the  cottage 
would  fare  when  the  cock  was  away,  he  purchased  the 
bird ;  and,  sailing  from  the  bay  before  nightfall,  did  not 
return  until  about  a  month  after. 

On  his  voyage  inwards,  he  had  no  sooner  doubled  an 
intervening  headland,  than  he  stepped  forward  to  the  bows 
to  take  a  peep  at  the  cottage :  it  had  vanished.  As  he 
approached  the  anchoring  ground,  he  could  discern  a  heap 
of  blackened  stones  occupying  the  place  where  it  had  stood ; 
and  he  was  informed  on  going  ashore,  that  it  had  been 
burnt  to  the  ground,  no  one  knew  how,  on  the  very  night 
he  had  quitted  the  bay.  He  had  it  re-built  and  furnished, 
says  the  story,  deeming  himself  what  one  of  the  old  school- 
men perhaps  term  the  occasional  cause  of  the  disaster.  He 
also  returned  the  cock,  —  probably  a  not  less  important 
benefit, — and  no  after  accident  befel  the  cottage.  About 
fifteen  years  ago  there  was  a  human  skeleton  dug  up  near 
the  scene  of  the  tradition,  with  the  skull,  and  the  bones 
of  the  legs  and  feet,  lying  close  together,  as  if  the  body 
had  been  huddled  up  twofold  in  a  hole  ;  and  this  discovery 
led  to  that  of  the  story,  which,  though  at  one  time  often 
repeated  and  extensively  believed,  had  been  suffered  to 
sleep  in  the  memories  of  a  few  elderly  people  for  nearly 
sixty  years. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Relation  of  the  deep  red  stone  of  Cromarty  to  the  Ichthyolite  Beds  of  the  System 

—  Ruins  of  a  Fossil-charged  Bed  —  Journey  to  Avoch  —  Red  Dye  of  the 
Boulder-clay  distinct  from  the  substance  itself —  Variation  of  Coloring  in  the 
Boulder-clay  Red    Sandstone   accounted  for  —  Hard-pan    how  formed  —  A 
reforn^d    Garden  —  An  ancient   Battle-field  —  Antiquity  of  Geologic  and 
Human  History  compared  —  Burn  of  Killein  —  Observation  made  in  boy- 
hood confirmed  —  Fossil-nodules  —  Fine  Specimen  of  Coccosteus  decipiens  — 

—  Blank  strata  of  Old  Red  —  New  View  respecting  the  Rocks  of  Black  Isle  — 
A  Trip  up  Moray  and  Dingwall  Friths  —  Altered  color  of  the  Boulder-clay  — 
Up  the  Auldgrande  River  —  Scenery  of  the  great  Conglomerate  —  Graphic 
Description  —  Laidlaw's  Boulder  —  Vaccinium  myrtillus  —  Profusion  of  Trav- 
elled Boulders  —  The  Boulder  Clach.  Mattock,  —  Its  zones  of  Animal  and  Vege- 
table Life. 

THE  ravine  excavated  by  the  mill-dam  showed  me  what 
I  had  never  so  well  seen  before,  —  the  exact  relation  borne 
by  the  deep  red  stone  of  the  Cromarty  quarries  to  the  ich- 
thyolite  beds  of  the  system.  It  occupies  the  same  place, 
and  belongs  to  the  same  period,  as  those  superior  beds  of 
the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone  which  are  so  largely  devel- 
oped in  the  cliffs  of  Dunnet  Head  in  Caithness,  and  of 
Tarbet  Ness  in  Ross-shire,  and  which  were  at  one  time 
regarded  as  forming,  north  of  the  Grampians,  the  analogue 
of  the  New  Red  Sandstone.  I  paced  it  across  the  strata 
this  morning,  in  the  line  of  the  ravine,  and  found  its  thick- 
ness over  the  upper  fish-beds,  though  I  was  far  from  reach- 
ing its  superior  layers,  which  are  buried  here  in  the  sea,  to 
be  rather  more  than  five  hundred  feet.  The  fossiliferous 
beds  occur  a  few  hundred  yards  below  the  dwelling-house 
of  Rose  Farm.  They  are  not  quite  uncovered  in  the 
ravine ;  but  we  find  their  places  indicated  by  heaps  of  gray 


856  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

argillaceous  shale,  mingled  with  their  characteristic  ichthy- 
olitic  nodules,  in  one  of  which  I  found  a  small  specimen  of 
Cheiracanthus.  The  projecting  edge  of  some  fossil-charged 
bed  had  been  struck,  mayhap,  by  an  iceberg,  and  dashed 
into  ruins,  just  as  the  subsiding  land  had  brought  the  spot 
within  reach  of  the  attritive  ice ;  and  the  broken  heap  thus 
detached  had  been  shortly  afterwards  covered  up,  without 
mixture  of  any  other  deposit,  by  the  red  boulder-clay.  On : 
the  previous  day  I  had  detected  the  fish-beds  in  another 
new  locality,  —  one  of  the  ravines  of  the  lawn  of  Cromarty 
House,  —  where  the  gray  shale,  concealed  by  a  covering  of 
soil  and  sward  for  centuries,  had  been  laid  br.re  during  the 
storm  by  a  swollen  runnel,  and  a  small  nodule,  inclosing  a 
characteristic  plate  of  Pterichthys,  washed  out.  And  my 
next  object  in  to-day's  journey,  after  exploring  this  ravine 
of  the  boulder-clay,  was  to  ascertain  whether  the  beds  did 
not  also  occur  in  a  ravine  of  the  parish  of  Avoch,  some 
eight  or  nine  miles  away,  which,  when  lying  a-bed  one 
night  in  Edinburgh,  I  remembered  having  crossed  when  a 
boy,  at  a  point  which  lies  considerably  out  of  the  ordinary 
route  of  the  traveller.  I  had  remarked  on  this  occasion,  as 
the  resuscitated  recollection  intimated,  that  the  precipices 
of  the  Avoch  ravine  bore,  at  the  unfrequented  point,  the 
peculiar  aspect  which  I  learned  many  years  after  to  associ- 
ate with  the  ichthyolitic  member  of  the  system ;  and  I 
was  now  quite  as  curious  to  test  the  truth  of  a  sort  of  vig- 
nette landscape,  transferred  to  the  mind  at  an  immature 
period  of  life,  and  preserved  in  it  for  full  thirty  years,  as 
desirous  to  extend  my  knowledge  of  the  fossiliferous  beds 
of  a  system  to  the  elucidation  of  which  I  had  peculiarly  de- 
voted myself. 

As  the  traveller  reaches  the  flat  moory  uplands  of  the 
parish,  where  the  water  stagnates  amid  heath  and  moss 
over  a  thin  layer  of  peaty  soil,  he  finds  the  underlying 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  357 

boulder-clay,  as  shown  in  the  chance  sections,  spotted  and 
streaked  with  patches  of  a  grayish- white.  There  is  the 
same  mixture  of  arenaceous  and  aluminous  particles  in  the 
white  as  in  the  red  portions  of  the  mass  ;  for,  as  we  see  so 
frequently  exemplified  in  the  spots  and  streaks  of  the  Red 
Sandstone  formations,  whether  Old  or  New,  the  coloring 
matter  has  been  discharged  without  any  accompanying 
change  of  composition  in  the  substance  which  it  per- 
vaded; —  evidence  enough  that  the  red  dye  must  be  some- 
thing distinct  from  the  substance  itself,  just  as  the  dye 
of  a  handkerchief  is  a  thing  distinct  from  the  silk  or  cotton 
yarn  of  which  the  handkerchief  has  been  woven.  The 
stagnant  water  above,  acidulated  by  its  various  vegetable 
solutions,  seems  to  have  been  in  some  Avay  connected  with 
these  appearances.  In  every  case  in  which  a  crack  through 
the  clay  gives  access  to  the  oozing  moisture,  we  see  the 
sides  bleached,  for  several  feet  downwards,  to  nearly  the 
color  of  pipe-clay ;  we  find  the  surface,  too,  when  it  has 
been  divested  of  the  vegetable  soil,  presenting  for  yards 
together  the  appearance  of  sheets  of  half-bleached  linen  : 
the  red  ground  of  the  clay  has  been  acted  upon  by  the 
percolating  fluid,  as  the  red  ground  of  a  Bandanna  handker- 
chief is  acted  upon  through  the  openings  in  the  perforated 
lead,  by  the  discharging  chloride  of  lime.  The  peculiar 
chemistry  through  which  these  changes  are  effected  might 
be  found,  carefully  studied,  to  throw  much  light  on  similar 
phenomena  in  the  older  formations.  There  are  quarries  in 
the  New  Red  Sandstone  in  which  almost  every  mass  of 
stone  presents  a  different  shade  of  color  from  that  of  its 
neighboring  mass,  and  qiiarries  in  the  Old  Red  the  strata  of 
which  we  find  streaked  and  spotted  like  pieces  of  calico. 
And  their  variegated  aspect  seems  to  have  been  communi- 
cated, in  every  instance,  not  during  deposition,  nor  after 
they  had  been  hardened  into  stone  but  when,  like  the 


358  RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST. 

boulder-clay,  they  existed  in  an  intermediate  state.  Be  it 
remarked,  too,  that  the  red  clay  here, —  evidently  derived 
from  the  abrasion  of  the  red  rocks  beneath, — is  in  dye  and 
composition  almost  identical  with  the  substance  on  which, 
as  an  unconsolidated  sandstone,  the  bleaching  influences, 
whatever  their  charactei*,  had  operated  in  the  Palaeozoic 
period,  so  many  long  ages  before ;  —  it  is  a  repetition  of 
the  ancient  experiment  in  the  Old  Red,  that  we  now  see 
going  on  in  the  boulder-clay.  It  is  further  worthy  of  no- 
tice, that  the  bleached  lines  of  the  clay  exhibit,  viewed 
horizontally,  when  the  overlying  vegetable  mould  has 
been  removed,  and  the  whitened  surface  in  immediate  con- 
tact with  it  paired  off,  a  polygonal  arrangement,  like  that 
assumed  by  the  cracks  in  the  bottom  of  clayey  pools  dried 
up  in  summer  by  the  heat  of  the  sun.  Can  these  possibly 
indicate  the  ancient  rents  and  fissures  of  the  boulder-clay, 
formed,  immediately  after  the  upheaval  of  the  land,  in  the 
first  process  of  drying,  and  remaining  afterwards  open 
enough  to  receive  what  the  uncracked  portions  of  the  sur- 
face excluded,  —  the  acidulated  bleaching  fluid  ? 

The  kind  of  ferruginous  pavement  of  the  boulder-clay 
known  to  the  agriculturist  as^>a??,  which  may  be  found  ex- 
tending in  some  cases  its  iron  cover  over  whole  districts, — 
sealing  them  down  to  barrenness,  as  the  iron  and  brass 
sealed  down  the  stump  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  tree,  —  is,  like 
the  white  strips  and  blotches  of  the  deposit,  worthy  the  care- 
ful notice  of  the  geologist.  It  serves  to  throw  some  light 
on  the  origin  of  those  continuous  bands  of  clayey  or  aren- 
aceous ironstone,  which  in  the  older  formations  in  which 
vegetable  matter  abounds,  whether  Oolitic  or  Cai'boni- 
ferous,  are  of  such  common  occurrence.  The  pan  is  a 
stony  stratum,  scarcely  less  indurated  in  some  localities 
than  sandstone  of  the  average  hardness,  that  rests  like  a 
pavement  on  the  surface  of  the  boulder-clay,  and  that  gen- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  359 

erally  bears  atop  a  thin  layer  of  sterile  soil,  darkened  by  a 
russet  covering  of  stunted  heath.  The  binding  cement  of 
the  pan  is,  as  I  have  said,  ferruginous,  and  seems  to  have 
been  derived  from  the  vegetable  covering  above.  Of  all 
plants,  the  heaths  are  found  to  contain  most  iron.  Nor  is 
it  difficult  to  conceive  how,  in  comparatively  flat  tracts  of 
heathy  moor,  where  the  surface  water  sinks  to  the  stiff 
subsoil,  and  on  which  one  generation  of  plants  after  another 
has  been  growing  and  decaying  for  many  centuries,  the 
minute  metallic  particles,  disengaged  in  the  process  of 
decomposition,  and  carried  down  by  the  rains  to  the  im- 
permeable clay,  should,  by  accumulating  there,  bind  the 
layer  on  which  they  rest,  as  is  the  nature  of  ferruginous 
oxide,  into  a  continuous  stony  crust.  Wherever  this  pan 
occui-s,  we  find  the  superincumbent  soil  doomed  to  br.r- 
renness,  —  arid  and  sun-baked  during  the  summer  and 
autumn  months,  and,  from  the  same  cause,  overcharged 
with  moisture  in  winter  and  spring.  My  fi'iend  Mr.  Swan- 
son,  when  schoolmaster  of  Nigg,  found  a  large  garden 
attached  to  the  school-house  so  inveterately  sterile  as  to 
be  scarce  worth  cultivation ;  a  thin  stratum  of  mould 
rested  on  a  hard  impermeable  pavement  of  pan,  through 
which  not  a  single  root  could  penetrate  to  the  tenacious 
but  not  unkindly  subsoil  below.  He  set  himself  to  work 
in  his  leisure  hours,  and  bit  by  bit  laid  bare  and  broke  up 
the  pavement.  The  upper  mould,  long  divoi'ced  from  the 
clay  on  which  it  had  once  rested,  was  again  united  to  it ; 
the  piece  of  ground  began  gradually  to  alter  its  character 
for  the  better ;  and  when  I  last  passed  the  way,  I  found  it, 
though  in  a  state  of  sad  neglect,  covered  by  a  richer  veg- 
etation than  it  had  ever  borne  under  the  more  careful 
management  of  my  friend.  This  ferruginous  pavement  of 
the  boulder-clay  may  be  deemed  of  intei-est  to  the  geol- 
ogist, as  a  curious  instance  of  deposition  in  a  dense  me- 


360  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

dium,  and  as  illustrative  of  the  changes  which  may  be 
effected  on  previously  existing  strata,  through  the  agency 
of  an  overlying  vegetation. 

I  passed,  on  my  way,  through  the  ancient  battle-field  to 
which  I  have  incidentally  referred  in  the  story  of  the 
Miller  of  Resolis.*  Modern  improvement  has  not  yet 
marred  it  by  the  plough ;  and  so  it  still  bears  on  its  brown 
surface  many  a  swelling  tumulus  and  flat  oblong  mound, 
and  —  where  the  high  road  of  the  district  passes  along  its 
eastern  edge  —  the  huge  gray  cairn,  raised,  says  tradition, 
over  the  body  of  an  ancient  Pictish  king.  But  the  contest 
of  which  it  was  the  scene  belongs  to  a  profoundly  dark 
period,  ere  the  gray  dawn  of  Scottish  history  began.  As 
shown  by  the  remains  of  ancient  art  occasionally  dug 
up  on  the  moor,  it  was  a  conflict  of  the  times  of  the  stone 
battle-axe,  the  flint  arrow-head,  and  the  unglazed  sepul- 
chral urn,  imindebted  for  aught  of  its  symmetry  to  the 
turning-lathe,  —  times  when  there  were  heroes  in  abun- 
dance, but  no  scribes.  And  the  cairn,  about  a  hundred 
feet  in  length  and  breadth,  by  about  twenty  in  height, 
with  its  long  hoary  hair  of  overgrown  lichen  waving  in 
the  breeze,  and  the  trailing  club-moss  shooting  upwards 
from  its  base  along  its  sides,  bears  in  its  every  lineament 
full  mark  of  its  great  age.  It  is  a  mound  striding  across 
the  stream  of  centuries,  to  connect  the  past  with  the  pre- 
sent. And  yet,  after  all,  what  a  mere  matter  of  yesterday 
its  extreme  antiquity  is!  My  explorations  this  morning 
bore  reference  to  but  the  later  eras  of  the  geologist ;  the 
portion  of  the  geologic  volume  which  I  was  attempting  to 
decipher  and  translate  formed  the  few  terminal  paragraphs 
of  its  concluding  chapter.  And  yet  the  finis  had  been 

*  For  this  story,  see  "  Scenes  and  Legends  of  the  North  of  Scotland," 
chap.  xxv. 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST-  SGI 

added  to  them  for  thousands  of  years  ere  this  latter  anti- 
quity began.  The  boulder-clay  had  been  formed  and 
deposited;  the  land,  in  rising  over  the  waves,  had  had 
many  a  huge  pebble  washed  out  of  its  last  formed  red 
stratum,  or  dropped  upon  it  by  ice-floes  from  above ;  and 
these  pebbles  lay  mottling  the  surface  of  this  barren  moor 
for  mile  after  mile,  bleaching  pale  to  the  rains  and  the  sun, 
as  the  meagre  and  mossy  soil  received,  in  tho  lapse  of  cen- 
turies, its  slow  accessions  of  organic  matter,  and  darkened 
around  them.  And  then,  for  a  few  brief  hours,  the  heath, 
no  longer  solitary,  became  a  wild  scene  of  savage  warfare, 
—  of  waving  arms  and  threatening  faces,  —  and  of  human 
lives  violently  spilled,  gushing  forth  in  blood ;  and,  when 
all  was  over,  the  old  weathered  boulders  were  heaped  up 
above  the  slain,  and  there  began  a  new  antiquity  in  rela- 
tion to  the  pile  in  its  gathered  state,  that  bore  reference 
to  man's  short  lifetime,  and  to  the  recent  introduction  of 
the  species.  The  child  of  a  few  summers  speaks  of  the 
events  of  last  year  as  long  gone  by ;  while  his  father  ad- 
vanced into  middle  life,  regards  them  as  still  fresh  and 
recent. 

I  reached  the  Burn  of  Killein,  —  the  scene  of  my  pur- 
posed explorations,  —  where  it  bisects  the  Inverness  road ; 
and  struck  down  the  rocky  ravine,  in  the  line  of  the 
descending  strata  and  the  falling  streamlet,  towards  the 
point  at  which  I  had  crossed  it  so  many  years  before. 
First  I  passed  along  a  thick  bed  of  yellow  stone,  —  next 
over  a  bed  of  stratified  clay.  "The  little  boy,"  I  said, 
"  took  correct  note  of  what  he  saw,  though  without  special 
aim  at  the  time,  and  as  much  under  the  guidance  of  a 
i  mere  observative  instinct  as  Dame  Quickly,  when  she  took 
note  of  the  sea-coal  fire,  the  round  table,  the  parcel-gilt 
goblet,  and  goodwife  Keech's  dish  of  prawns  dressed  in 
vinegar,  as  adjuncts  of  her  interview  with  old  Sir  John 

31 


362  KAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

when  he  promised  to  marry  her.  These  .are  unequivocally 
the  ichthyolitic  beds,  whether  they  contain  ichthyolites  or 
no."  The  first  nodule  I  laid  open  presented  inside  merely 
a  pale  oblong  patch  in  the  centre,  which  I  examined  in 
vain  with  the  lens,  though  convinced  of  its  organic  origin, 
for  a  single  scale.  Proceeding  farther  down  the  stream,  I 
picked  a  nodule  out  of  a  second  and  lower  bed,  which  con- 
tained more  evidently  its  organism,  —  a  finely-reticulated 
fragment,  that  at  first  sight  reminded  me  of  some  delicate 
festinella  of  the  Silurian  system.  It  proved,  however,  to 
be  part  of  the  tail  of  a  Cheiracanthus,  exhibiting  —  what 
is  rarely  shown  —  the  interior  surfaces  of  those  minute 
rectangular  scales  which  in  this  genus  lie  over  the  caudal 
fin,  ranged  in  right  lines.  A  second  nodule  presented  me 
with  the  spines  of  Diplacanthus  striatus  ;  and  still  farther 
down  the  stream,  —  for  the  beds  are  numerous  here,  and 
occupy  in  vertical  extent  veiy  considerable  space  in  the 
system,  —  I  detected  a  stratum  of  bulky  nodules  charged 
with  fragments  of  Coccosteus,  belonging  chiefly  to  two 
species,  —  Coccosteus  decipiens  and  Coccosteus  cuspidatus. 
All  the  specimens  bore  conclusive  evidence  regarding  the 
geologic  place  and  character  of  the  beds  in  which  they 
occur ;  and  in  one  of  the  number,  a  specimen  of  Coccosteus 
decipienS)  sufficiently  fine  to  be  transferred  to  my  knap- 
sack, and  which  now  occupies  its  corner  in  my  little  col- 
lection, the  head  exhibits  all  its  plates  in  their  proper 
order,  and  the  large  dorsal  plate,  though  dissociated  from 
the  nail-like  attachment  of  the  nape,  presents  its  charac- 
teristic breadth  entire.  It  was  the  plates  of  this  species, 
first  found  in  the  flagstones  of  Caithness,  which  were  taken 
for  those  of  a  fresh-water  tortoise ;  and  hence  apparently 
its  specific  name,  decipiens  ; —  it  is  the  deceiving  Coccos- 
teus. I  disinterred,  in  the  course  of  my  explorations,  as 
many  nodules  as  lay  within  reach,  —  now  and  then  long- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  363 

ing  for  a  pick-axe,  and  a  companion  robust  and  persever- 
ing enough  to  employ  it  with  effect ;  and  after  seeing  all 
that  was  to  be  seen  in  the  bed  of  the  stream  and  the  pre- 
cipices, I  retraced  my  steps  up  the  dell  to  the  highway. 
And  then,  striking  off  across  the  moor  to  the  north, — 
ascending  in  the  system  as  I  climbed  the  eminence,  which 
forms  here  the  central  ridge  of  the  old  Maolbuie  Common, 
—  I  spent  some  little  time  in  a  quarry  of  pale  red  sand- 
stone, known,  from  the  moory  height  on  which  it  has  been 
opened,  as  the  quarry  of  the  Maolbuie.  But  here,  as  else- 
where, the  folds  of  that  upper  division  of  the  Lower  Old 
Red  in  which  it  has  been  excavated  contain  nothing  or- 
ganic. Why  this  should  be  so  universally  the  case,  —  for 
in  Caithness,  Orkney,  Cromarty,  and  Ross,  wherever,  in 
short,  this  member  of  the  system  is  unequivocally  devel- 
oped, it  is  invariably  barren  of  remains,  —  cannot,  I  sus- 
pect, be  very  satisfactorily  explained.  Fossils  occur  both 
over  and  under  it,  in  rocks  that  seem  as  little  favorable  to 
their  preservation;  but  during  that  intervening  period 
which  its  blank  strata  represent,  at  least  the  species  of  all 
the  ichthyolites  of  the  system  seem  to  have  changed,  and, 
so  far  as  is  yet  known,  the  genus  Coccosteus  died  out 
entirely. 

The  Black  Isle  has  been  elaborately  described  in  the  last 
Statistical  Account  of  the  Parish  of  Avoch  as  comprising 
at  least  the  analogues  of  three  vast  geologic  systems.  The 
Great  Conglomerate,  and  the  thick  bed  of  coarse  sand- 
stone of  corresponding  character  that  lies  over  it,  compose 
all  which  is  not  primary  rock  of  that  south-eastern  ridge 
of  the  district  which  forms  the  shores  of  the  Moray  Frith ; 
and  they  are  represented  in  the  Account  as  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone proper.  Then,  next  in  order,  —  forming  the  base  of 
a  parallel  ridge,  —  come  those  sandstone  and  argillaceous 
bands  to  which  the  ichthyolite  beds  belong;  and  these, 


364  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

though  at  the  time  the  work  appeared  their  existence  in 
the  locality  could  be  but  guessed  at,  are  described  as  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Coal  Measures.  Last  of  all  there  occur 
those  superior  sandstones  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  formation 
in  which  the  quarry  of  the  Maolbuie  has  been  opened,  and 
which  are  largely  developed  in  the  central  or  back-bone 
ridge  of  the  district.  "And  these,"  says  the  writer,  "we 
have  little  hesitation  in  assigning  to  the  New  Red,  or 
variegated  Sandstone  formation."  I  remember  that  some 
thirteen  years  ago,  —  in  part  misled  by  authority,  and  in 
part  really  afraid  to  represent  beds  of  such  an  enormous 
aggregate  thickness  as  all  belonging  to  one  inconsiderable 

oo       o  o      o 

formation,  —  for  such  was  the  character  of  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone  at  the  time,  —  I  ventured,  though  hesitatingly, 
and  with  less  of  detail,  on  a  somewhat  similar  statement 
regarding  the  sandstone  deposits  of  the  parish  of  Crom- 
arty.  But  true  it  is,  notwithstanding,  that  the  stratified 
rocks  of  the  Black  Isle  are  composed  generally,  not  of  the 
analogues  of  three  systems,  but  of  merely  a  fractional  por- 
tion of  a  single  system,  —  a  fact  previously  established  in 
other  parts  of  the  district,  and  which  my  discovery  of  this 
day  in  the  Burn  of  Killein  served  yet  farther  to  confirm  in 
relation  to  that  middle  portion  of  the  tract  in  which  the 
parish  of  Avoch  is  situated.  The  geologic  records,  unlike 
the  Sybilline  books,  grow  in  volume  and  number  as  one 
pauses  and  hesitates  over  them ;  demanding,  however,  witli 
every  addition  to  their  bulk,  a  larger  and  yet  larger  sum 
of  epochs  and  of  ages. 

The  sun  had  got  low  in  the  western  sky,  and  I  had  at 
least  some  eight  or  nine  miles  of  rough  road  still  before 
me ;  but  the  day  had  been  a  happy  and  not  unsuccessful 
one,  and  so  its  hard  work  had  failed  to  fatigue.  The  shad- 
ows, however,  were  falling  brown  and  deep  on  the  bleak 
Maolbuie,  as  I  passed,  on  my  return,  the  solitary  cairn ; 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  3G5 

and  it  was  dark  night  long  ere  I  reached  Cromarty.  Next 
morning  I  quitted  the  town  for  the  upper  reaches  of  the 
Frith,  to  examine  yet  further  the  superficial  deposits  and 
travelled  boulders  of  the  district. 

I  landed  at  Invergordon  a  little  after  noon,  from  the 
Leith  steamer,  that,  on  its  way  to  the  upper  ports  of  the 
Moray  and  Dingwall  Friths,  stops  at  Cromarty  for  passen- 
gers every  Wednesday;  and  then  passing  direct  through 
the  village,  I  took  the  western  road  which  winds  along 
the  shore  towards  Strathpeffer,  skirting  on  the  right  the 
ancient  province  of  the  Munroes.  The  day  was  clear  and 
genial ;  and  the  wide-spreading  woods  of  this  part  of  the 
country,  a  little  touched  by  their  autumnal  tints  of  brown 
and  yellow,  gave  a  warmth  of  hue  to  the  landscape,  which 
at  an  earlier  season  it  wanted.  A  few  slim  streaks  of 
semi-transparent  mist,  that  barred  the  distant  hill-peaks, 
and  a  few  towering  piles  of  intensely  white  cloud,  that 
shot  across  the  deep  blue  of  the  heavens,  gave  warning 
that  the  earlier  part  of  the  day  was  to  be  in  all  probability 
the  better  part  of  it,  and  that  the  harvest  of  observation 
which  it  was  ultimately  to  yield  might  be  found  to  depend 
on  the  prompt  use  made  of  the  passing  hour.  What  first 
attracts  the  attention  of  the  geologist,  in  journeying  west- 
wards, is  the  altered  color  of  the  boulder-clay,  as  exhibited 
in  ditches  by  the  way-side,  or  along  the  shore.  It  no 
longer  presents  that  characteristic  red  tint,  —  borrowed 
from  the  red  sandstone  beneath,  —  so  prevalent  over  the 
Black  Isle,  and  in  Easter  Ross  generally ;  but  is  of  a  cold 
leaden  hue,  not  unlike  that  which  it  wears  above  the  Coal 
Measures  of  the  south,  or  over  the  flagstones  of  Caithness. 
The  altered  color  here  is  evidently  a  consequence  of  the 
large  development,  in  Ferindonald  and  Strathpeffer,  of  the 
ichthyolitic  members  of  the  Old  Red,  existing  chiefly  as 
fetid  bituminous  breccias  and  dark-colored  sandstones: 

31* 


366  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

the  boulder-clay  of  the  locality  forms  the  dressings,  not  of 
red,  but  of  blackish-gray  rocks ;  and,  as  almost  everywhere 
else  in  Scotland,  its  trail  lies  to  the  east  of  the  strata,  from 
which  it  was  detached  in  the  character  of  an  impalpable 
mud  by  the  age-protracted  grindings  of  the  denuding 
agent.  It  abounds  in  masses  of  bituminous  breccia,  some 
of  which,  of  great  size,  seem  to  have  been  drifted  direct 
from  the  valley  of  Strathpeffer,  and  are  identical  in  struc- 
ture and  composition  with  the  rock  in  which  the  mineral 
springs  of  the  Strath  have  their  rise,  and  to  which  they 
owe  their  peculiar  qualities. 

After  walking  on  for  about  eight  miles,  through  noble 
woods  and  a  lovely  country,  I  struck  from  off  the  high  road 
at  the  pretty  little  village  of  Evanton,  and  pursued  the 
course  of  the  river  Auldgrande,  first  through  intermingled 
fields  and  patches  of  copsewood,  and  then  through  a  thick 
fir  wood,  to  where  the  bed  of  the  stream  contracts  from  a 
boulder-strewed  bottom  of  ample  breadth,  to  a  gloomy  fis- 
sure, so  deep  and  dark,  that  in  many  places  the  water  can- 
not be  seen,  and  so  narrow,  that  the  trees  which  shoot  out 
from  the  opposite  sides  interlace  their  branches  atop.  Large 
banks  of  the  gray  boulder-clay,  laid  open  by  the  river,  and 
charged  with  fragments  of  dingy  sandstone  and  dark-colored 
breccia,  testify,  along  the  lower  reaches  of  the  stream,  to 
the  near  neighborhood  of  the  ichthyolitic  member  of  the 
Old  Red ;  but  where  the  banks  contract,  we  find  only  its 
lowest  member,  the  Great  Conglomerate.  This  last  is  by 
far  the  most  picturesque  member  of  the  system,  —  abrupt 
and  bold  of  outline  in  its  hills,  and  mural  in  its  precipices. 
And  nowhere  does  it  exhibit  a  wilder  or  more  characteristic 
beauty  than  at  the  tall  narrow  portal  of  the  Auldgrande, 
where  the  river,  —  after  wailing  for  miles  in  a  pent-up 
channel,  narrow  as  one  of  the  lanes  of  old  Edinburgh,  and 
hemmed  in  by  walls  quite  as  perpendicular,  and  nearly 


EAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  867 

twice  as  lofty,  —  suddenly  expands,  first  into  a  deep  brown 
pool,  and  then  into  a  broad  tumbling  stream,  that,  as  if 
permanently  affected  in  temper  by  the  strict  severity  of  the 
discipline  to  which  its  early  life  had  been  subjected,  frets 
and  chafes  in  all  its  after  course,  till  it  loses  itself  in  the  sea. 
The  banks,  ere  we  reach  the  opening  of  the  chasm,  have  be- 
come steep,  and  wild,  and  densely  wooded ;  and  there 
stand  out  on  either  hand,  giant  crags,  that  plant  their  iron 
feet  in  the  stream ;  here  girdled  with  belts  of  rank  succu- 
lent shrubs,  that  love  the  damp  shade  and  the  frequent  driz- 
zle of  the  spray;  and  there  hollow  and  bare,  with  their 
round  pebbles  sticking  out  from  the  partially  decomposed 
surface,  like  the  piled-up  skulls  in  the  great  underground 
cemetery  of  the  Parisians.  Massy  trees,  with  their  green 
fantastic  roots  rising  high  over  the  scanty  soil,  and  forming 
many  a  labyiinthine  recess  for  the  frog,  the  toad,  and  the 
newt,  stretch  forth  their  gnarled  arms  athwart  the  stream. 
In  front  of  the  opening,  with  but  a  black  deep  pool  be- 
tween, there  lies  a  mid-way  bank  of  huge  stones.  Of 
these,  not  a  few  of  the  more  angular  masses  still  bear, 
though  sorely  worn  by  the  torrent,  the  mark  of  the  blasting 
iron,  and  were  evidently  tumbled  into  the  chasm  from  the 
fields  above.  But  in  the  chasm  there  was  no  rest  for  them, 
and  so  the  arrowy  rush  of  the  water  in  the  confined  chan- 
nel swept  them  down  till  they  dropped  where  they  now  lie, 
just  where  the  widening  bottom  first  served  to  dissipate  the 
force  of  the  current.  And  over  the  sullen  pool  in  front  we 
may  see  the  stern  pillars  of  the  portal  rising  from  eighty  to 
a  hundred  feet  in  height,  and  scarce  twelve  feet  apart,  like 
the  massive  obelisks  of  some  Egyptian  temple;  while,  in 
gloomy  vista  within,  projection  starts  out  beyond  projec- 
tion, like  column  beyond  column  in  some  narrow  avenue  of 
approach  to  Luxor  or  Carnac.  The  precipices  are  green, 
with  some  moss  or  byssus,  that  like  the  miner,  chooses  a 


368  GAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

subterranean  habitat,  —  tor  here  the  rays  of  the  sun  never 
fall ;  the  dead,  mossy  water  beneath,  from  which  the  cliffs 
rise  so  abruptly,  bears  the  hue  of  molten  pitch ;  the  trees, 
fast  anchored  in  the  rock,  shoot  out  their  branches  across 
the  opening,  to  form  a  thick  tangled  roof,  at  the  height  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  overhead;  while  from  the  recesses 
within,  where  the  eye  fails  to  penetrate,  there  issues  a 
combination  of  the  strangest  and  wildest  sounds  ever  yet 
produced  by  water :  there  is  the  deafening  rush  of  the  tor- 
rent, blent  as  if  with  the  clang  of  hammers,  the  roar  of 
vast  bellows,  and  the  confused  gabble  of  a  thousand  voices. 
The  sun,  hastening  to  its  setting,  shone  red,  yet  mellow, 
through  the  foliage  of  the  wooded  banks  on  the  west, 
where,  high  above,  they  first  curve  from  the  sloping  level 
of  the  fields,  to  bend  over  the  stream ;  or  fell  more  direct 
on  the  jutting  cliffs  and  bosky  dingles  opposite,  burnishing 
them  as  if  with  gold  and  fire ;  but  all  was  coldly-hued  at 
the  bottom,  where  the  torrent  foamed  gray  and  chill 
under  the  brown  shadow  of  the  banks;  and  where  the 
narrow  portal  opened  an  untrodden  way  into  the  myste- 
rious recesses  beyond,  the  shadoAV  deepened  almost  into 
blackness.  The  scene  lacked  but  a  ghost  to  render  it  per- 
fect. An  apparition  walking  from  within  like  the  genius 
in  one  of  Goldsmith's  essays  "along  the  surface  of  the 
water,"  would  have  completed  it  at  once. 

Laying  hold  of  an  overhanging  branch,  I  warped  my- 
self upwards  from  the  bed  of  the  stream  along 'the  face  of 
a  precipice,  and,  reaching  its  sloping  top,  forced  my  w:iy 
to  the  wood  above,  over  a  steep  bank  covered  with  tan- 
gled underwood,  and  a  slim  succulent  herbage,  that  sick- 
ened for  want  of  the  sun.  The  yellow  light  was  streaming 
through  many  a  shaggy  vista,  as,  threading  my  way  along 
the  narrow  ravine  as  near  the  steep  edge  as  the  broken- 
ness  of  the  ground  permitted,  I  reached  a  huge  mass  of 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  369 

travelled  rock,  that  had  been  dropped  in  the  old  boulder 
period  within  a  yard's  length  of  the  brink.  It  is  composed 
of  a  characteristic  granitic  gneiss  of  a  pale  flesh-color, 
streaked  with  black,  that,  in  the  hand  specimen,  can  scarce 
be  distinguished  from  a  true  granite,  but  which,  viewed  in 
the  mass,  presents,  in  the  arrangement  of  its  intensely 
dark  mica,  evident  marks  of  stratification,  and  which  is 
remarkable,  among  other  things,  for  furnishing  almost  all 
the  very  large  boulders  of  this  part  of  the  country.  Un- 
like many  of  the  granitic  gneisses,  it  is  a  fine  solid  stone, 
and  would  cut  well.  When  I  had  last  the  pleasure  of 
spending  a  few  hours  with  the  late  Mr.  William  Laidlaw, 
the  trusted  friend  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  he  intimated  to 
me  his  intention, — pointing  to  a  boulder  of  this  species 
of  gneiss,  —  of  having  it  cut  into  two  oblong  pedestals, 
with  which  he  pui-posed  flanking  the  entrance  to  the  man- 
sion-house of  the  chief  of  the  Rosses,  —  the  gentleman 
whose  property  he  at  that  time  superintended.  It  was, 
he  said,  both  in  appearance  and  history,  the  most  remark- 
able stone  on  the  lands  of  Balnagown;  and  so  he  was 
desirous  that  it  should  be  exhibited  at  Balnagown  Castle 
to  the  best  advantage.  But  as  he  fell  shortly  after  into 
infirm  health,  and  resigned  his  situation,  I  know  not  that 
he  ever  carried  his  purpose  into  effect.  The  boulder  here, 
beside  the  chasm,  measures  about  twelve  feet  in  length  and 
breadth,  by  from  five  to  six  in  height,  and  contains  from 
eight  to  nine  hundred  cubic  feet  of  stone.  On  its  upper 
table-like  surface  I  found  a  few  patches  of  moss  and  lichen, 
and  a  slim  reddening  tuft  of  the  Vacciniutn  myrtillus^ 
still  bearing,  late  as  was  the  season,  its  half-dozen  blae- 
berries. This  pretty  little  plant  occurs  in  great  profusion 
along  the  steep  edges  of  the  Auklgrande,  where  its  deli- 
cate bushes,  springing  up  amid  long  heath  and  ling,  and 
crimsoned  by  the  autumnal  tinge,  gave  a  peculiar  warmth 


370  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

and  richness  this  evening  to  those  bosky  spots  under  the 
brown  trees,  or  in  immediate  contact  Avith  the  dark  chasm 
on  which  the  sunlight  fell  most  strongly ;  and  on  all  the 
more  perilous  projections,  I  found  the  dark  berries  still 
shrivelling  on  their  stems.  Thirty  years  earlier  I  would 
scarce  have  left  them  there ;  and  the  more  perilous  the  crag 
on  which  they  had  grown,  the  more  deliciously  would  they 
have  eaten.  But  every  period  of  life  has  its  own  play- 
things ;  and  I  was  now  chiefly  engaged  with  the  deep 
chasm  and  the  huge  boulder.  Chasm  and  boulder  had 
come  to  have  greatly  more  of  interest  to  me  than  the  del- 
icate berries,  or  than  even  that  sovereign  dispeller  of 
ennui  and  low  spirits,  an  adventurous  scramble  among  the 
cliffs. 

In  what  state  did  the  chasm  exist  when  the  huge 
boulder,  —  detached,  mayhap,  at  the  close  of  a  severe 
frost,  from  some  island  of  the  archipelago  that  is  now  the 
northern  Highlands  of  Scotland,  —  was  suffered  to  drop 
beside  it,  from  some  vast  ice-floe  drifting  eastwards  on  the 
tide  ?  In  all  probability  merely  as  a  fault  in  the  Conglo- 
merate, similar  to  many  of  those  faults  which  in  the  Coal 
Measures  of  the  southern  districts  we  find  occupied  by 
continuous  dikes  of  trap.  But  in  this  northern  region, 
where  the  trap-rocks  are  unknown,  it  must  have  been  filled 
up  with  the  boulder-clay,  or  with  some  still  more  ancient 
accumulation  of  debris.  And  when  the  land  had  risen, 
and  the  streams,  swollen  into  rivers,  flowed  along  the  hol- 
lows which  they  now  occupy,  the  loose  rubbish  would  in 
the  lapse  of  ages  gradually  wash  downwards  to  the  sea,  as 
the  stones  thrown  from  the  fields  above  were  washed 
downwards  in  a  later  time ;  and  thus  the  deep  fissure 
would  ultimately  be  cleared  out.  The  boulder-stones  lie 
thickly  in  this  neighborhood,  and  over  the  eastern  half  of 
Ross-shire,  and  the  Black  Isle  generally ;  though  for  the 


RAMBLES   OP   A   GEOLOGIST.  871 

last  century  they  have  been  gradually  disappearing  from 
the  more  cultivated  tracts  on  which  there  were  fences  or 
farm-steadings  to  be  built,  or  where  they  obstructed  the 
course  of  the  plough.  We  found  them  occurring  in  every 
conceivable  situation,  —  high  on  hillsides,  where  the  shep- 
herd crouches  beside  them  for  shelter  in  a  shower,  —  deep 
in  the  open  sea,  where  they  entangle  the  nets  of  the  fish- 
erman, —  on  inland  moors,  where  in  some  remote  age  they 
were  painfully  rolled  together,  to  form  the  Druidical  circle 
or  Picts'-house,  —  or  on  the  margin  of  the  coast,  where 
they  had  been  piled  over  one  another  at  a  later  time,  as 
protecting  bulwarks  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
waves.  They  lie  strewed  more  sparingly  over  extended 
plains,  or  on  exposed  heights,  than  in  hollows  sheltered 
from  the  west  by  high  land,  where  the  current,  when  it 
dashed  high  on  the  hill-sides,  must  have  been  diverted 
from  its  easterly  course,  and  revolved  in  whirling  eddies. 
On  the  top  of  the  fine  bluff  hill  of  Fyrish,  which  I  so  ad- 
mired to-day,  each  time  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  its  purple 
front  through  the  woods,  and  which  shows  how  noble  a 
mountain  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  may  produce,  the  boul- 
ders lie  but  sparsely.  I  especially  marked,  however,  when 
last  on  its  summit,  a  ponderous  traveller  of  a  vividly  green 
hornblende,  resting  on  a  bed  of  pale  yellow  sandstone, 
fully  a  thousand  feet  over  the  present  high-water  level. 
But  towards  the  east,  in  what  a  seaman  would  term  the 
bight  of  the  hill,  the  boulders  have  accumulated  in  vast 
numbers.  They  lie  so  closely  piled  along  the  course  of 
the  river  Alness,  about  half  a  mile  above  the  village,  that 
it  is  with  difficulty  the  waters,  when  in  flood,  can  force 
their  passage  through.  For  here,  apparently,  when  the 
tide  swept  along  the  hill-side,  many  an  ice-floe,  detained 
in  the  shelter  by  the  revolving  eddy,  dashed  together  in 
rude  collision,  and  shook  their  stony  burdens  to  the  but- 


372  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

torn.  Immediately  to  the  east  of  the  IOAV  promontory  on 
which  the  town  of  Cromarty  is  built  there  is  another  ex- 
tensive accumulation  of  boulders,  some  of  them  of  great 
size.  They  occupy  exactly  the  place  to  which  I  have 
oftener  than  once  seen  the  drift-ice  of  the  upper  part  of 
the  Cromarty  Frith,  set  loose  by  a  thaw,  and  then  carried 
seawards  by  the  retreating  tide,  forced  back  by  a  violent 
storm  from  the  east,  and  the  fragments  ground  against 
each  other  into  powder.  And  here,  I  doubt  not,  of  old, 
when  the  sea  stood  greatly  higher  than  now,  and  the  ice- 
floes were  immensely  larger  and  more  numerous  than 
those  formed,  in  the  existing  circumstances,  in  the  upper 
shallows  of  the  Frith,  would  the  fierce  north-east  have 
charged  home  with  similar  effect,  and  the  broken  masses 
have  divested  themselves  of  their  boulders. 

The  Highland  chieftain  of  one  of  our  old  Gaelic  tradi- 
tions conversed  with  a  boulder-stone,  and  told  to  it  the 
story  which  he  had  sworn  never  to  tell  to  man.  I  too, 
after  a  sort,  have  conversed  with  boulder-stones,  not,  how- 
ever, to  tell  them  any  stoiy  of  mine,  but  to  urge  them  to 
tell  theirs  to  me.  But,  lacking  the  fine  ear  of  Hans  An- 
derson, the  Danish  poet,  who  can  hear  flowers  and  butter- 
flies talk,  and  understand  the  language  of  birds,  I  have  as 
yet  succeeded  in  extracting  from  them  no  such  articulate 
reply 

"As  Meranon's  image,  long  renowned  of  old 
By  fabling  Nilus,  to  the  quivering  touch 
Of  Titan's  ray,  with  each  repulsive  string 
Consenting,  sounded  through  the  warbling  air." 

And  yet,  who  can  doubt  that,  were  they  a  little  more 
communicative,  their  stories  of  movement  in  the  past, 
with  the  additional  circumstances  connected  with  the 
places  which  they  have  occupied  ever  since  they  gave 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  373 

over  travelling,  would  be  exceedingly  curious  ones? 
Among  the  boulder  group  to  the  east  of  Cromarty,  the 
most  ponderous  individual  stands  so  exactly  on  the  low- 
water  line  of  our  great  Lammas  tides,  that  though  its 
shoreward  edge  may  be  reached  dry-shod  from  four  to  six 
times  every  twelvemonth,  no  one  has  ever  succeeded  in 
walking  dry  shod  round  it.  I  have  seen  a  strong  breeze 
from  the  west,  prolonged  for  a  few  days,  prevent  its  dry- 
ing, when  the  Lammas  stream  was  at  its  point  of  lowest 
ebb,  by  from  a  foot  to  eighteen  inches,  —  an  indication, 
apparently,  that  to  that  height  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
may  be  heaped  up  against  our  shores  by  the  impulsion  of 
the  wind.  And  the  recurrence,  during  at  least  the  last 
centiiry,  of  certain  ebbs  each  season,  which,  when  no  dis- 
turbing atmospheric  phenomena  interfere  with  their  opera- 
tion, are  sure  to  lay  it  dry,  demonstrate,  that  during  that 
period  no  change,  even  the  most  minute,  has  taken  place 
on  our  coasts,  in  the  relative  levels  of  sea  and  shore.  The 
waves  have  considerably  encroached,  during  even  the  last 
half-century,  on  the  shores  immediately  opposite  ;  but  it 
must  have  been,  as  the  stone  shows,  simply  by  the  attri- 
tion of  the  waves,  and  the  consequent  lowering  of  the 
beach,  —  not  through  any  rise  in  the  ocean,  or  any  depres- 
sion of  the  land. 

The  huge  boulder  here  has  been  known  for  ages  as  the 
Clach  Mullock,  or  accursed  stone,  from  the  circumstance, 
says  tradition,  that  a  boat  was  once  wrecked  upon  it  dur- 
ing a  storm,  and  the  boatmen  drowned.  Though  little 
more  than  seven  feet  in  height,  by  about  twelve  in  length, 
and  some  eight  or  nine  in  breadth,  its  situation  on  the  ex- 
'  treme  line  of  ebb  imparts  a  peculiar  character  to  the  vari- 
ous productions,  animal  and  vegetable,  which  we  find 
adhering  to  it.  They  occur  in  zones,  just  as  on  lofty  hills 
the  botanist  finds  his  agricultural,  moorland,  and  alpine 

32 


374  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

zones  rising  in  succession  as  he  ascends,  the  one  over  the 
other.  At  its  base,  where  the  tide  rarely  falls,  we  find 
two  varieties  of  Lobiilaria  digitata,  dead  man's  hand,  the 
orange  colored  and  the  pale,  with  a  species  of  sertularia ; 
and  the  characteristic  vegetable  is  the  rough-stemmed 
tangle,  or  cuvy.  In  the  zone  immediately  above  the  low- 
est, these  productions  disappear ;  the  characteristic  animal, 
if  animal  it  be,  is  a  flat  yellow  sponge,  —  the  Halichond.ria 
papillaris,  —  remarkable  chiefly  for  its  sharp  siliceous  spi- 
cula  and  its  strong  phosphoric  smell ;  and  the  characteris- 
tic vegetable  is  the  smooth-stemmed  tangle,  or  queener.  In 
yet  another  zone  we  find  the  common  limpet  and  the  vesi- 
cular kelp-weed ;  and  the  small  gray  balanus  and  serrated 
kelp-weed  form  the  productions  of  the  top.  We  may  see 
exactly  the  same  zones  occurring  in  broad  belts  along  the 
shore,  —  each  zone  indicative  of  a  certain  overlying  depth 
of  water ;  but  it  seems  curious  enough  to  find  them  all 
existing  in  succession  on  one  boulder.  Of  the  boulder  and 
its  story,  however,  more  in  my  next. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

Imaginary  Autobiography  of  the  Clack  Mnlloch  Boulder  —  Its  Creation  —  Its 
long  night  of  unsummed  Centuries  —  Laid  open  to  light  on  a  desert  Island 
—  Surrounded  by  an  Arctic  Vegetation  —  Undermined  by  the  rising  Sea  — 
Locked  up  and  floated  off  on  an  Ice-field  —  At  rest  on  the  Sea-bottom  — 
Another  Night  of  unsnmmed  Years  —  The  Boulder  raised  again  above  the 
waves  by  the  rising  of  the  Land  —  Beholds  an  altered  Country  —  Pine  For- 
ests and  Mammals  —  Another  Period  of  Ages  passes  —  The  Boulder  again 
floated  off  by  an  Iceberg  —  Finally  at  rest  on  the  Shore  of  Cromarty  Bay- 
Time  and  Occasion  of  naming  it — Strange  Phenomena  accounted  for  by  Earth- 
quakes —  How  the  Boulder  of  Petty  Bay  was  moved  —  The  Boulder  of  Auld- 
grande— The  old  Highland  Paupers  —  The  little  Parsi  Girl  —  Her  Letter  to 
her  Papa  —  But  one  Human  Nature  on  Earth  —  Journey  resumed  —  Conon 
Burying  Ground  —  An  aged  Couple  —  Gossip. 

THE  natural,  and,  if  I  may  so  speak,  topographical,  his- 
tory of  the  Glacfi  Malloch,  —  including,  of  course,  its 
zoology  and  botany,  with  notes  of  those  atmospheric  effects 
on  the  tides,  and  of  that  stability  for  ages  of  the  existing 
sea-level,  which  it  indicates, — would  of  itself  form  one  very 
interesting  chapter :  its  geological  history  would  furnish 
another.  It  would  probably  tell,  if  it  once  fairly  broke 
silence  and  became  autobiographical,  first  of  a  feverish 
dream,  of  intense  molten  heat  and  overpowering  pressure; 
and  then  of  a  busy  time,  in  which  the  free  molecules,  as  at 
once  the  materials  and  the  artisans  of  the  mass,  began  to 
build,  each  according  to  its  nature,  under  the  superintend- 
ence of  a  curious  chemistry,  —  here  forming  sheets  of  black 
mica,  there  rhombs  of  a  dark-green  hornblende  and  a  flesh- 
colored  feldspar,  yonder  amorphous  masses  of  a  translucent 
quartz.  It  would  add  further,  that  at  length,  when  the 


376  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

slow  process  was  over,  and  the  entire  space  had  been  occu, 
pied  to  the  full  by  plate,  molecule,  and  crystal,  the  red 
fiery  twilight  of  the  dream  deepened  into  more  than  mid- 
night gloom,  and  a  chill  unconscious  night  descended  on 
the  sleeper.  The  vast  Paleozoic  period  passes  by,  —  the 
scarce  less  protracted  Secondary  ages  come  to  a  close,  — 
the  Eocene,  Miocene,  Pliocene  epochs  are  ushered  in  and 
terminate, — races  begin  and  end, — families  and  orders  are 
born  and  die ;  but  the  dead,  or  those  whose  deep  slumber 
admits  not  of  dreams,  take  no  note  of  time ;  and  so  it 
would  tell  how  its  long  night  of  unsummed  centuries 
seemed,  like  the  long  night  of  the  grave,  compressed  into 
a  moment. 

The  marble  silence  is  suddenly  broken  by  the  rush  of  an 
avalanche,  that  tears  away  the  superincumbent  masses, 
rolling  them  into  the  sea;  and  the  ponderous  block,  laid 
open  to  the  light,  finds  itself  on  the  bleak  shore  of  a  desert 
island  of  the  northern  Scottish  archipelago,  with-  a  wintry 
scene  of  snow-covered  peaks  behind,  and  an  ice-mottled 
ocean  before.  The  winter  passes,  the  cold  severe  spring 
comes  on,  and  day  after  day  the  field-ice  goes  floating  1  >y, 
• —  now  gray  in  shadow,  now  bright  in  the  sun.  At  length 
vegetation,  long  repressed,  bursts  forth,  but  in  no  profuse 
luxuriance.  A  few  dwarf  birches  unfold  their  leaves  amid 
the  rocks ;  a  few  sub-arctic  willows  hang  out  their  catkins 
beside  the  swampy  runnels ;  the  golden  potentilla  opens 
its  bright  flowers  on  slopes  where  the  evergreen  Empetrum 
nifjrmn  slowly  ripens  its  glossy  crow-berries;  and  from 
where  the  sea-spray  dashes  at  full  tide  along  the  beach,  to 
where  the  snow  gleams  at  midsummer  on  the  mountain- 
summits,  the  thin  short  sward  is  dotted  by  the  minute 
cruciform  stars  of  the  scurvy-grass,  and  the  crimson  blos- 
soms of  the  sea-pink.  Xot  a  few  of  the  plants  of  our  exist- 
ing sea-shores  and  of  our  loftier  hill-tops  are  still  identical 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  377 

in  species ;  but  wide  zones  of  rich  herbage,  with  many  a 
fertile  field  and  many  a  stately  tree,  intervene  betAveen  the 
bare  marine  belts  and  the  bleak  insulated  eminences ;  and 
thus,  the  alpine,  notwithstanding  its  identity  with  the 
littoral  flora,  has  been  long  divorced  from  it ;  but  in  this 
early  time  the  divorce  had  not  yet  taken  place,  nor  for 
ages  thereafter;  and  the  same  plants  that  sprang  around 
the  sea-margin  rose  also  along  the  middle  slopes  to  the 
mountain-summits.  The  landscape  is  treeless  and  bare, 
and  a  hoary  lichen  whitens  the  moors,  and  waves,  as  the 
years  pass  by,  in  pale  tufts,  from  the  disinterred  stone,  now 
covered  with  weather-stains,  green  and  gray,  and  standing 
out  in  bold  and  yet  bolder  relief  from  the  steep  hill-side 
as  the  pulverizing  frosts  and  washing  rains  bear  away  the 
lesser  masses  from  around  it.  The  sea  is  slowly  rising,  and 
the  land,  in  proportion,  narrowing  its  flatter  margins,  and 
yielding  up  its  wider  valleys  to  the  tide ;  the  low  green 
island  of  one  century  forms  the  half-tide  skerry,  darkened 
with  algae,  of  another,  and  in  yet  a  third  exists  but  as  a 
deep-sea  rock.  As  its  summit  disappears,  groups  of  hills, 
detached  from  the  land,  become  islands,  skerries,  deep-sea 
rocks,  in  turn.  At  length  the  waves  at  full  wash  within  a 
few  yards  of  the  granitic  block.  And  now,  yielding  to  the 
undermining  influences,  just  as  a  blinding  snow-shower  is 
darkening  the  heavens,  it  comes  thundering  down  the 
steep  into  the  sea,  where  it  lies  immediately  beneath  the 
high-water  line,  surrounded  by  a  wide  float  of  pulverized 
ice,  broken  by  the  waves.  A  keen  frost  sets  in ;  the  half- 
fluid  mass  around  is  bound  up  for  many  acres  into  a  solid 
raft,  that  clasps  fast  in  its  rigid  embrace  the  rocky  frag- 
ment ;  a  stream-tide,  heightened  by  a  strong  gale  from  the 
west,  rises  high  on  the  beach;  the  consolidated  ice-field 
moves,  floats,  is  detached  from  the  shore,  creeps  slowly 
outwards  into  the  offing,  bearing  atop  the  boulder;  and, 
32* 


378  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

finally,  caught  by  the  easterly  current,  it  drifts  away  into 
the  open  ocean.  And  then,  far  from  its  original  bed  in  the 
rock,  amid  the  jerkings  of  a  cockling  sea,  the  mass  breaks 
through  the  supporting  float,  and  settles  far  beneath,  amid 
the  green  and  silent  twilight  of  the  bottom,  where  its 
mosses  and  lichens  yield  their  place  to  stony  encrustations 
of  deep  purple,  and  to  miniature  thickets  of  arboraceous 
zoophites. 

The  many-colored  Acalcphaa  float  by;  the  many-armed 
Sepiadsc  shoot  over;  while  shells  that  love  the  profounder 
depths, — the  black  Modiola  and  delicate  Anomia, — anchor 
along  the  sides  of  the  mass ;  and  where  thickets  of  the 
deep-sea  tangle  spread  out  their  long,  streamer-like  fronds 
to  the  tide,  the  strong  Cyprina  and  many-ribbed  Astarte 
shelter  by  scores  amid  the  reticulations  of  the  short  woody 
stems  and  thick-set  roots.  A  sudden  darkness  comes  on, 
like  that  which  fell  upon  Sinbad  when  the  gigantic  roc 
descended  upon  him;  the  sea-surface  is  fully  sixty  fathoms 
over  head ;  but  even  at  this  great  depth  an  enormous  ice- 
berg grates  heavily  against  the  bottom,  crushing  into  frag- 
ments in  its  course,  Cyprina,  Modiola,  Astarte,  with  many 
a  hapless  mollusc  besides ;  and  furrows  into  deep  grooves 
the  very  rocks  on  which  they  lie.  It  passes  away ;  and, 
after  many  an  tinsummed  year  has  also  passed,  there  comes 
another  change.  The  period  of  depression  and  of  the 
boulder-clay  is  over.  The  water  has  shallowed  as  the  sea- 
line  gradually  sank,  or  the  land  was  propelled  upwards  by 
some  elevatory  process  from  below ;  and  each  time  the  tide 
falls,  the  huge  boulder  now  raises  over  the  waters  its  broad 
forehead,  already  hung  round  with  flowing  tresses  of  brown 
sea-weed,  and  looks  at  the  adjacent  coast.  The  country 
has  strangely  altered  its  features :  it  exists  no  longer  as  a 
broken  archipelago,  scantily  covered  by  a  semi-arctic  vege- 
tation, but  as  a  continuous  land,  still  whitened,  where  the 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  370 

great  valleys  open  to  the  sea,  by  the  pale  gleam  of  local 
glaciers,  and  snow-streaked  on  its  loftier  hill-tops.  But 
vast  forests  of  dark  pine  sweep  along  its  hill-sides  or  selvage 
its  shores ;  and  the  sheltered  hollows  are  enlivened  by  the 
lighter  green  of  the  oak,  the  ash,  and  the  elm.  Human  foot 
has  not  yet  imprinted  its  sward  ;  but  its  brute  inhabitants 
have  become  numerous.  The  cream-colored  coat  of  the 
wild  bull,  —  a  speck  of  white  relieved  against  a  ground  of 
dingy  green,  —  may  be  seen  far  amid  the  pines,  and  the 
long  howl  of  the  wolf  heard  from  the  nearer  thickets.  The 
gigantic  elk  raises  himself  from  his  lair,  and  tosses  his  pon- 
derous horns  at  the  sound;  while  the  beaver,  in  some 
sequestered  dell  traversed  by  a  streamlet,  plunges  alarmed 
into  his  deep  coffer-dam,  and,  rising  through  the  submerged 
opening  of  his  cell,  shelters  safely  within,  beyond  reach  of 
pursuit.  The  great  transverse  valleys  of  the  country,  from 
its  eastern  to  its  western  coasts,  are  still  occupied  by  the 
sea,  —  they  exist  as  broad  ocean-sounds ;  and  many  of  the 
detached  hills  rise  around  its  shores  as  islands.  The  north- 
ern Sutor  forms  a  bluff  high  island,  for  the  plains  of  Easter 
Ross  are  still  submerged ;  and  the  Black  Isle  is  in  reality 
what  in  later  times  it  is  merely  in  name,  —  a  sea-encircled 
district,  holding  a  mid-way  place  between  where  the  Sound 
of  the  great  Caledonian  Valley  and  the  Sounds  of  the  Val- 
leys of  the  Conon  and  Can-on  open  into  the  German  Ocean. 
Though  the  climate  has  greatly  softened,  it  is  still,  as  the 
local  glaciers  testify,  ungenial  and  severe.  Winter  pro- 
tracts his  stay  through  the  later  months  of  spring;  and 
still,  as  of  old,  vast  floats  of  ice,  detached  from  the  glaciers, 
or  formed  in  the  lakes  and  shallower  estuaries  of  the  inte- 
rior, come  drifting  down  the  Sounds  every  season,  and 
disappear  in  the  open  sea,  or  lie  stranded  along  the  shores. 
Ages  have  again  passed  :  the  huge  boulder,  from  the 
further  sinking  of  the  waters,  lies  dry  throughout  the 


380  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

neaps,  and  is  covered  only  at  the  height  of  each  stream- 
tide  ;  there  is  a  float  of  ice  stranded  on  the  beach,  which 
consolidates  around  it  during  the  neap,  and  is  floated  off 
by  the  stream ;  and  the  boulder,  borne  in  its  midst,  as  of 
old,  again  sets  out  a  voyaging.  It  has  reached  the  narrow 
opening  of  the  Sutors,  swept  downwards  by  the  strong 
ebb  current,  when  a  violent  storm  from  the  north-east  sets 
in  ;  and,  constrained  by  antagonist  forces,  —  the  sweep  of 
the  tide  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  roll  of  the  waves  on  the 
other,  —  the  ice-raft  deflects  into  the  little  bay  that  lies  to 
the  east  of  the  promontory  now  occupied  by  the  town  of 
Cromarty.  And  there  it  tosses,  with  a  hundred  more 
jostling  in  rude  collision  ;  and  at  length  bursting  apart, 
the  Clach  Mattock,  its  journeyings  forever  over,  settles  on 
its  final  resting-place.  In  a  period  long  posterior  it  saw 
the  ultimate  elevation  of  the  land.  Who  shall  dare  say 
how  much  more  it  witnessed,  or  decide  that  it  did  not 
form  the  centre  of  a  rich  forest  vegetation,  and  that  the 
ivy  did  not  cling  round  it,  and  the  wild  rose  shed  its 
petals  over  it,  when  the  Dingwall,  Moray,  and  Dornoch 
Friths  existed  as  sub-aerial  valleys,  traversed  by  streams 
that  now  enter  the  sea  far  apart,  but  then  gathered  them- 
selves into  one  vast  river,  that,  after  it  had  received  the 
tributary  waters  of  the  Shin  and  the  Conon,  the  Ness  and 
the  Beauly,  the  Helmsdale,  the  Brora,  the  Findhorn,  and 
the  Spey,  rolled  on  through  the  flat  secondary  formations 
of  the  outer  Moray  Frith,  —  Lias,  and  Oolite,  and  Green- 
sand,  and  Chalk,  —  to  fall  into  a  gulf  of  the  Northern 
Ocean  which  intei'vened  between  the  coasts  of  Scotland 
and  Norway,  but  closed  nearly  opposite  the  mouth  of  the 
Tyne,  leaving  a  broad  level  plain  to  connect  the  coasts  of 
England  with  those  of  the  Continent !  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  present  sea-cor.st  became  at  length  the  common  boun- 
dary of  land  and  sea.  And  the  boulder  continued  to 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  381 

exist  for  centuries  still  later  as  a  nameless  stone,  on  which 
the  tall  gray  heron  rested  moveless  and  ghost-like  in  the 
evenings,  and  the  seal  at  mid-day  basked  lazily  in  the  sun. 
And  then  there  came  a  night  of  fierce  tempest,  in  which 
the  agonizing  ciy  of  drowning  men  was  heard  along  the 
shore.  When  the  morning  broke,  there  lay  strewed  around 
a  few  bloated  corpses,  and  the  fragments  of  a  broken 
wreck  ;  and  amid  wild  execrations  and  loud  sorrow  the 
boulder  received  its  name.  Such  is  the  probable  history, 
briefly  told,  because  touched  at  merely  a  few  detached 
points,  of  the  huge  Clach  Mattoch.  The  incident  of  the 
second  voyage  here  is  of  course  altogether  imaginary,  in 
relation  to  at  least  this  special  boulder ;  but  it  is  to  second 
voyages  only  that  all  our  positive  evidence  testifies  in  the 
history  of  its  class.  The  boulders  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  so 
well  described  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  voyage  by  thousands 
eveiy  year  ;*  and  there  are  few  of  my  northern  readers 
who  have  not  heard  of  the  short  trip  taken  nearly  half  a 
century  ago  by  the  boulder  of  Petty  Bay,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Culloden. 

*  "  In  the  River  St.  Lawrence,"  says  Sir  Charles  Lycll,  "  the  loose  ice 
accumulates  on  the  shoals  during  the  winter,  at  which  season  the  water  is 
low.  The  separate  fragments  of  ice  arc  readily  frozen  together  in  a  cli- 
mate where  the  temperature  is  sometimes  thirty  degress  below  zero,  and 
boulders  become  entangled  with  them  ;  so  that  in  the  spring,  when  the 
river  rises  on  the  melting  of  the  snow,  the  rocks  are  floated  off,  frequently 
conveying  away  the  boulders  to  great  distances.  A  single  block  of  gran- 
ite, fifteen  feet  long  by  ten  feet  both  in  width  and  height,  and  which  could 
not  contain  less  than  fifteen  hundred  cubic  feet  of  stone,  was  in  this  way 
moved  down  the  river  several  hundred  yards,  during  the  late  survey  in 
1837.  Heavy  anchors  of  ships,  lying  on  the  shore,  have  in  like  manner 
been  closed  in  and  removed.  In  October  1836,  wooden  stakes  were  driven 
several  feet  into  the  ground,  at  one  point  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence, at  high-water  mark,  and  over  them  were  piled  many  boulders  as 
large  as  the  united  force  of  six  men  could  roll.  The  year  after,  all  the 
boulders  had  disappeared,  and  others  had  arrived,  and  the  stakes  had  been 
drawn  out  and  carried  away  by  the  ice." — ['  Elements,'  first  edition,  p.  108. 


382  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

A  Highland  minister  of  the  last  century,  in  describing, 
for  Sir  John  Sinclair's  Statistical  Account,  a  large  sepul- 
chral cairn  in  his  parish,  attributed  its  formation  to  an 
earthquake  !  Earthquakes,  in  these  latter  times,  are  intro- 
duced, like  the  heathen  gods  of  old,  to  bring  authors  out 
of  difficulties.  I  do  not  think,  however,  —  and  I  have  the 
authority  of  the  old  critic  for  at  least  half  the  opinion,  — 
that  either  gods  or  earthquakes  should  be  resorted  to  by 
poets  or  geologists,  without  special  occasion :  they  ought 
never  to  be  called  in  except  as  a  last  resort,  when  there  is 
no  way  of  getting  on  without  them.  And  I  am  afraid 
there  have  been  few  more  gratuitous  invocations  of  the 
earthquake  than  on  a  certain  occasion,  some  five  years 
ago,  when  it  was  employed  by  the  inmate  of  a  north-coun- 
try manse,  at  once  to  account  for  the  removal  of  the 
boulder-stone  of  Petty  Bay,  and  to  annihilate  at  a  blow 
the  geology  of  the  Free  Church  editor  of  the  "Witness.  I 
had  briefly  stated  in  one  of  my  papers,  in  referring  to  this 
curious  incident,  that  the  boulder  of  the  bay  had  been 
"  borne  nearly  three  hundred  yards  outwards  into  the  sea 
by  an  enclasping  mass  of  ice,  in  the  course  of  a  single 
tide."  "Xot  at  all,"  said  the  northern  clergyman;  "the 
cause  assigned  is  wholly  insufficient  to  produce  such  an 
effect.  All  the  ice  ever  formed  in  the  bay  would  be  insuf- 
ficient to  remove  such  a  boulder  a  distance,  not  of  three 
hundred,  but  even  of  three  yards."  The  removal  of  the 
stone  "  is  referrible  to  an  EAETHQUAKE  ! "  The  country,  it 
would  seem,  took  a  sudden  lurch,  and  the  stone  tumbled 
off.  It  fell  athwart  the  flat  surface  of  the  bay,  as  a  soup 
tureen  sometimes  falls  athwart  the  table  of  a  storm-beset 
steamer,  vastly  to  the  discomfort  of  the  passengers,  and 
again  caught  the  ground  as  the  land  righted.  Ingenious, 
certainly!  It  does  appear  a  little  wonderful,  however, 
that  in  a  shock  so  tremendous  nothing  should  have  fallen 


RAMBLES   OP   A    GEOLOGIST.  383 

off  except  the  stone.  In  an  earthquake  on  an  equally 
great  scale,  in  the  present  unsettled  state  of  society,  en- 
dowed clergymen  would,  I  am  afraid,  be  in  some  danger 
of  falling  out  of  their  charges. 

The  boulder  beside  the  Auldgrande  has  not  only,  like 
the  Clach  Malloeh,  a  geologic  history  of  its  own,  but, 
what  some  may  deem  of  perhaps  equal  authority,  a  my- 
thologic  history  also.  The  inaccessible  chasm,  impervious 
to  the  sun,  and  ever  resounding  the  wild  howl  of  the  tor- 
tured water,  was  too  remarkable  an  object  to  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  old  imaginative  Celts ;  and  they  have 
married  it,  as  was  their  wont,  to  a  set  of  stories  quite  as 
wild  as  itself.  And  the  boulder,  occupying  a  nearly  cen- 
tral position  in  its  course,  just  where  the  dell  is  deepest, 
and  narrowest,  and  blackest,  and  where  the  stream  bellows 
far  underground  in  its  wildest  combination  of  tones,  marks 
out  the  spot  where  the  more  extraordinary  incidents  have 
happened,  and  the  stranger  sights  have  been  seen.  Im- 
mediately beside  the  stone  there  is  what  seems  to  be  the 
beginning  of  a  path  leading  down  to  the  water;  but  it 
stops  abruptly  at  a  tree,  —  the  last  in  the  descent,  —  and 
the  green  and  dewy  rock  sinks  beyond  for  more  than  a 
hundred  feet,  perpendicular  as  a  wall.  It  Avas  at  the  abrupt 
termination  of  this  path  that  a  Highlander  once  saw  a 
beautiful  child  smiling  and  stretching  out  its  little  hand  to 
him,  as  it  hung  half  in  air  by  a  slender  tAvig.  But  he  well 
knew  that  it  was  no  child,  but  an  evil  spirit,  and  that  if 
he  gave  it  the  assistance  which  it  seemed  to  crave,  he 
would  be  pulled  headlong  into  the  chasm,  and  never  heard 
of  more.  And  the  boulder  still  bears,  it  is  said,  on  its 
side,  —  though  I  failed  this  evening  to  detect  the  mark,  — 
the  stamp,  strangely  impressed,  of  the  household  keys  of 
Balconie.* 

*  The  story  of  the  Lady  of  Balconie  and  her  keys  is  narrated  in  "  Scenes 
and  Lo^onds  of  the  North  of  Scotland."  chap.  xi. 


384  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

The  sun  had  now  got  as  low  upon  the  hill,  and  the  ra- 
vine had  grown  as  dark,  as  when,  so  long  before,  the  lady  of 
Balconie  took  her  last  walk  along  the  sides  of  the  Auld- 
grande ;  and  I  struck  up  for  the  little  alpine  bridge  of  a 
few  undressed  logs,  which  has  been  here  thrown  across  the 
chasm,  at  the  height  of  a  hundred  and  thirty  feet  over  the 
water.  As  I  pressed  through  the  thick  underwood,  I 
startled  a  strange-looking  apparition  in  one  of  the  open 
spaces  beside  the  gulf,  where,  as  shown  by  the  profusion  of 
plants  of  vaccinium,  the  blaeberries  had  greatly  abounded 
in  their  season.  It  was  that  of  an  extremely  old  woman, 
cadaverously  pale  and  miserable  looking,  with  dotage 
glistening  in  her  inexpressive,  rheum-distilling  eyes,  and 
attired  in  a  blue  cloak,  that  had  been  homely  when  at  its 
best,  and  was  now  exceedingly  tattered.  She  had  been 
poking  with  her  crutch  among  the  bushes,  as  if  looking  for 
berries  ;  but  my  approach  had  alarmed  her  ;  and  she  stood 
muttering  in  Gaelic  what  seemed,  from  the  tones  and  repe- 
tition, to  be  a  few  deprecatory  sentences.  I  addressed  her 
in  English,  and  inquired  what  could  have  brought  to  a  place 
so  wild  and  lonely,  one  so  feeble  and  helpless.  "  Poor  ob- 
ject!" she  muttered  in  reply,  —  "poor  object! — very  hun- 
gry;" but  her  scanty  English  could  carry  her  no  further.  I 
slipped  into  her  hand  a  small  piece  of  silver,  for  which  she 
overwhelmed  me  with  thanks  and  blessings  ;  and,  bringing 
her  to  one  of  the  broader  avenues,  traversed  by  a  road 
which  leads  out  of  the  wood,  I  saw  her  fairly  entered  upon 
the  path  in  the  right  direction,  and  then,  retracing  my  steps 
crossed  the  log-bridge.  The  old  woman, — little,  I  should 
suppose  from  her  appearance,  under  ninety, — was  I  doubt 
not,  one  of  our  ill-provided  Highland  paupers,  that  starve 
under  a  law  which,  while  it  has  dried  up  the  genial  streams 
of  voluntary  charity  in  the  country  and  presses  hard  upon 
the  means  of  the  humbler  classes,  alleviates  little,  if  at  all, 


KAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  385 

the  sufferings  of  the  extreme  poor.  Amid  present  suffering 
and  privation  there  had  apparently  mingled  in  her  dotage 
some  dream  of  early  enjoyment,  —  a  dream  of  the  days 
when  she  had  plucked  berries,  a  little  herd-girl,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Anldgrandc  ;  and  the  vision  seemed  to  have 
sent  her  out,  far  advanced  in  her  second  childhood,  to 
poke  among  the  bushes  with  her  crutch. 

My  old  friend  the  minister  of  Alness, — uninstalled  at  the 
time  in  his  new  dwelling, — was  residing  in  a  house  scarce 
half  a  mile  from  the  chasm,  to  which  he  had  removed  from 
the  parish  manse  at  the  Disruption  ;  and,  availing  myself 
of  an  invitation  of  long  standing,  I  climbed  the  acclivity  on 
which  it  stands,  to  pass  the  night  with  him.  I  found,  how- 
ever, that  with  part  of  his  family,  he  had  gone  to  spend  a 
few  weeks  beside  the  mineral  springs  of  Strath peifer,  in  the 
hope  of  recruiting  a  constitution  greatly  weakened  by 
excessive  labor,  and  that  the  entire  household  at  home  con- 
sisted of  but  two  of  the  young  ladies  his  daughters,  and 
their  ward,  the  little  Buchubai  Hormazdji. 

And  who,  asks  the  reader,  is  this  Buchubai  Hormazdji? 
A  little  Parsi  girl,  in  her  eighth  year,  the  daughter  of  a 
Christian  convert  from  the  ancient  faith  of  Zoroaster,  who 
now  labors  in  the  Free  Church  Mission  at  Bombay.  Bu- 
chubai, his  only  child,  was  on  his  conversion,  forcibly  taken 
from  him  by  his  relatives,  but  restored  again  by  a  British 
court  of  law  ;  and  he  had  secured  her  safety  by  sending 
her  to  Europe,  a  voyage  of  many  thousand  miles,  with  a 
lady,  the  wife  of  one  of  our  Indian  missionaries,  to  whom 
she  had  become  attached,  as  her  second  but  true  mamma, 
and  with  whose  sisters  I  now  found  her.  The  little  girl, 
sadly  in  want  of  a  companion  this  evening,  was  content,  for 
lack  of  a  better,  to  accept  of  me  as  a  playfellow  ;  and  she 
showed  me  all  her  rich  eastern  dresses,  and  all  her  toys, 
and  a  very  fine  emerald,  set  in  the  oriental  fashion,  which, 
33 


386  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

when  she  was  in  full  costume,  sparkled  from  her  embroidered 
tiara.  I  found  her  exceedingly  like  little  girls  at  home,  save 
that  she  seemed  more  than  ordinarily  observant  and  intelli- 
gent,—  a  consequence  mayhap,  of  that  early  development, 
physical  and  mental,  which  characterizes  her  race.  She  sub- 
mitted to  me,  too,  when  I  had  got  very  much  into  her  confi- 
dence, a  letter  she  had  written  to  her  papa  from  Strathpeffer, 
which  was  to  be  sent  him  by  the  next  Indian  mail.  And 
as  it  may  serve  to  show  that  the  style  of  little  girls  whose 
fathers  were  fire-worshippers  for  three  thousand  years  and 
more  differs  in  no  perceptible  quality  from  the  style  of  little 
girls  whose  fathers  in  considerably  less  than  three  thousand 
were  Pagans,  Papists,  and  Protestants  by  turns,  besides 
passing  through  the  various  intermediate  forms  of  belief, 
I  must,  after  pledging  the  reader  to  strict  secrecy,  submit 
it  to  his  perusal :  — 

"My  dearest  Papa, — I  hope  you  are  quite  well.  lam 
visiting  mamma  at  present  at  Strathpeffer.  She  is  much 
better  now  than  when  she  was  travelling.  Mamma's  sisters 
give  their  love  to  you,  and  mamma,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  F. 
also.  They  all  ask  you  to  pray  for  them,  and  they  will 
pray  also.  There  are  a  great  many  at  water  here  for  sick 
people  to  drink  out  of.  The  smell  of  the  water  is  not  at 
all  nice.  I  sometimes  drink  it.  Give  my  dearest  love  to 
Narsion  Skishadre,  and  tell  her  that  I  will  write  to  her.  — 
Dearest  papa."  etc. 

It  was  a  simple  thought,  which  required  no  reach  of  mind 
whatever  to  grasp,  —  and  yet  an  hour  spent  with'  little  Bu- 
chubai  made  it  tell  upon  me  more  powerfully  than  ever 
before, — that  there  is  in  reality  but  one  human  nature  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Had  I  simply  read  of  Buchubai 
Hormazdji  corresponding  with  her  father  Hormazdji  Pes- 
tonji,  and  sending  her  dear  love  to  her  old  companion  Xarsion 
Skishadre,  the  names  so  specifically  different  from  those 


HAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  387 

which  we  ourselves  employ  in  designating  our  country  folk, 
would  probably  have  led  me,  through  a  false  association,  to 
regard  the  parties  to  which  they  attach  as  scarcely  less 
specifically  diiferent  from  our  country  folk  themselves.  I 
suspect  we  are  misled  by  associations  of  this  kind  when  we 
descant  on  the  peculiarities  of  race  as  interposing  insur- 
mountable barriers  to  the  progress  of  improvement,  physi- 
cal or  mental.  We  overlook,  amid  the  diversities  of  form, 
color,  and  language,  the  specific  identity  of  the  human 
family.  The  Celt,  for  instance,  wants,  it  is  said,  those 
powers  of  sustained  application  which  so  remarkably  dis- 
tinguish the  Saxon  ;  and  so  we  agree  on  the  expediency  of 
getting  rid  of  our  poor  Highlanders  by  expatriation  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  of  converting  their  country  into  sheep- 
walks  and  hunting-parks.  It  would  be  surely  well  to  have 
philosophy  enough  to  remember  what,  simply  through  the 
exercise  of  a  wise  faith,  the  Christian  missionary  never  for- 
gets, that  the  peculiarities  of  race  are  not  specific  and  ine- 
radicable, but  mere  induced  habits  and  idiosyncracies 
engrafted  on  the  stock  of  a  common  nature  by  accident 
of  circumstance  or  development ;  and  that,  as  they  have 
been  wrought  into  the  original  tissue  through  the  protracted 
operation  of  one  set  of  causes,  the  operation  of  another 
and  different  set,  wisely  and  perseveringly  directed,  could 
scarce  fail  to  unravel  and  work  them  out  again.  They  form 
no  part  of  the  inherent  design  of  man's  nature,  but  have 
merely  stuck  to  it  in  its  transmissive  passage  downwards 
and  require  to  be  brushed  off.  There  was  a  time,  some  four 
thousand  years  ago,  when  Celt  and  Saxon  were  represented 
by  but  one  man  and  his  wife,  with  their  children  and  their 
children's  wives ;  and  some  sixteen  or  seventeen  centuries 
earlier  all  the  varieties  of  the  species, — Caucasian  and  Negro, 
Mongolian  and  Malay, — lay  close  packed  up  in  the  world's 
single  family.  In  short,  Buchubai's  amusing  prattle  proved 


388  KAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

S. 

to  me  this  evening  no  bad  commentary  on  St.  Paul's 
sublime  enunciation  to  the  Athenians,  that  God  has  "  made 
of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth."  I  was  amused  to  find  that  the  little  girl, 
who  listened  intently  as  I  described  to  the  young  ladies 
all  I  had  seen  and  knew  of  the  Auldgrande,  had  never 
before  heard  of  a  ghost,  and  could  form  no  conception  of 
one  now.  The  ladies  explained,  described,  defined ;  care- 
fully guarding  all  they  said,  however,  by  stern  disclaimers 
against  the  ghost  theory  altogether,  but  apparently  to  little 
purpose.  At  length  Buchubai  exclaimed,  that  she  now 
knew  what  they  meant,  and  that  she  herself  had  seen  a 
great  many  ghosts  in  India.  On  explanation,  however,  her 
ghosts,  though  quite  frightful  enough,  turned  out  to  be  not 
at  all  spiritual :  they  were  things  of  common  occurrence 
in  the  land  she  had  come  from,  —  exposed  bodies  of  the 
dead. 

Next  morning — as  the  white  clouds  and  thin  mist-streaks 
of  the  preceding  day  had  fairly  foretold  —  was  close  and 
wet ;  and  the  long  trail  of  vapor  which  rises  from  the  chasm 
of  the  Auldgrande  in  such  weather,  and  is  known  to  the 
people  of  the  neighborhood  as  the  "  smoke  of  the  lady's 
baking,"  hung,  snake-like,  over  the  river.  About  two  o'clock 
the  rain  ceased,  hesitatingly  and  doubtfully,  however,  as 
if  it  did  not  quite  know  its  own  mind  ;  and  there  arose 
no  -breeze  to  shake  the  dank  grass,  or  to  dissipate  the  thin 
mist-wreath  that  continued  to  float  over  the  river  under  a 
sky  of  deep  gray.  But  the  ladies,  with  Buchubai,  impa- 
tient to  join  their  friends  at  Strathpeffer,  determined  on 
journeying  notwithstanding  ;  and,  availing  myself  of  their 
company  and  their  vehicle,  I  travelled  on  with  them  to 
Dingwall,  whei%e  we  parted.  I  had  purposed  exploring  the 
gray  dingy  sandstones  and  fetid  breccias  developed  along 
the  shores  on  the  northern  side  of  the  bay,  about  two 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  389 

miles  from  the  town,  and  on  the  sloping  acclivities  between 
the  mansion-houses  of  Tulloch  and  Fowlis ;  but  the  day 
was  still  unfavorable,  and  the  sections  seemed  untemptingly 
indifferent ;  besides,  I  could  entertain  no  doubt  that  the 
dingy  beds  here  are  identical  in  place  with  those  of  Cad- 
boll  on  the  coast  of  Easter  Ross,  which  they  closely  resem- 
ble, and  which  alternate  with  the  lower  ichthyolitic  beds 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone ;  and  so,  for  the  present  at  least, 
I  gave  up  my  intention  of  exploring  them. 

In  the  evening,  the  sun,  far  gone  down  towards  its  place 
of  setting,  burst  forth  in  great  beauty ;  and,  under  the 
influence  of  a  kindly  breeze  from  the  west,  just  strong 
enough  to  shake  the  wet  leaves,  the  sky  flung  off  its  thick 
mantle  of  gray.  I  sauntered  out  along  the  high-road,  in 
the  direction  of  my  old  haunts  at  Cononside,  with,  however, 
no  intention  of  walking  so  far.  But  the  reaches  of  the  river, 
a  little  in  flood,  shone  temptingly  through  the  dank  foliage, 
and  the  cottages  under  the  Conon  woods  glittered  clear  on 
their  sweeping  hill-side,  "looking  cheerily  out"  into  the 
landscape ;  and  so  I  wandered  on  and  on,  over  the  bridge, 
and  along  the  river,  and  through  the  pleasure  grounds  of 
Conon -house,  till  I  found  myself  in  the  old  solitary  burying- 
ground  beside  the  Conon,  which,  when  last  in  this  part  of 
the  country,  I  was  prevented  from  visiting  by  the  swollen 
waters.  The  rich  yellow  light  streamed  through  the  inter- 
stices of  the  tall  hedge  of  forest-trees  that  encircles  the 
eminence,  once  an  island,  and  fell  in  fantastic  patches  on  the 
gray  tombstone  and  the  graves.  The  ruinous  little  chapel 
in  the  corner,  whose  walls  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  I 
had  distinctly  traced,  had  sunk  into  a  green  mound ;  and 
there  remained  over  the  sward  but  the  arch-stone  of  a 
Gothic  window,  with  a  portion  of  the  moulded  transom 
attached,  to  indicate  the  character  and  style  of  the  vanished 
building.  The  old  dial-stone,  with  the  wasted  gnomon, 
33* 


390  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

has  also  disappeared ;  and  the  few  bright-colored  throch- 
stanes,  raw  froln  the  chisel,  that  had  been  added  of  late 
years  to  the  group  of  older  standing,  did  not  quite  make 
up  for  what  time  in  the  same  period  had  withdrawn.  One 
of  the  newer  inscriptions,  however,  recorded  a  curious  fact. 
When  I  had  resided  in  this  part  of  the  country  so  long  be- 
fore, there  was  an  aged  couple  in  the  neighborhood,  who 
had  lived  together,  it  was  said,  as  man  and  wife,  for  more 
than  sixty  years:  and  now,  here  was  their  tombstone  and  epi- 
taph. They  had  lived  on  long  after  my  departure ;  and  when, 
as  the  seasons  passed,  men  and  women  whose  births  and  bap- 
tisms had  taken  place  since  their  wedding-day  were  flailing 
around  them  well  stricken  in  years,  death  seemed  to  have  for- 
gotten them  /  <md  when  he  came  at  last,  their  united  ages 
made  up  well  nigh  two  centuries.  The  wife  had  seen  her 
ninety-sixth  and  the  husband  his  hundred  and  second  birth- 
day. It  does  not  transcend  the  skill  of  the  actuary  to  say  how 
many  thousand  women  must  die  under  ninety-six  for  every 
one  that  reaches  it,  and  how  many  tens  of  thousands  of 
men  must  die  under  a  hundred  and  two  for  every  man  who 
attains  to  an  age  so  extraordinary  ;  but  he  would  require 
to  get  beyond  his  tables  in  order  to  reckon  up  the  chances 
against  the  woman  destined  to  attain  to  ninety-six  being 
courted  and  married  in  early  life  by  the  man  born  to  attain 
to  a  hundred  and  two. 

After  enjoying  a  magnificent  sunset  on  the  banks  of  the 
Conon,  just  where  the  scenery,  exquisite  thi'oughout,  is 
most  delightful,  I  returned  through  the  woods,  and  spent 
half  an  hour  by  the  way  in  the  cottage  of  a  kindly-hearted 
woman,  now  considerably  advanced  in  years,. whom  I  had 
known,  when  she  was  in  middle  life,  as  the  wife  of  one  of 
the  Cononside  hinds,  and  who  not  unfrequently,  when  I 
was  toiling  at  the  mallet  in  the  burning  sun,  hot  and 
thirsty,  and  rather  loosely  knit  for  my  work,  had  brought 


HAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  o'Jl 

me  —  all  she  had  to  offer  at  the  time  —  a  draught  of  fresh 
whey.  At  first  she  seemed  to  have  wholly  forgotten  both 
her  kindness  and  the  object  of  it.  She  well  remembered 
my  master,  and  another  Cromarty  man  who  had  been 
grievously  injured,  when  undermining  an  old  building,  by 
the  sudden  fall  of  the  erection ;  but  she  could  bethink  her 
of  no  third  Cromarty  man  whatever.  "  Eh,  sirs ! "  she  at 
length  exclaimed,  "  I  daresay  ye  '11  be  just  the  smn'  prentice 
laddie.  Weel,  what  will  young  folk  no  come  out  o'  ?  They 
were  amaist  a'  stout  big  men  at  the  wark  except  yoursel' ; 
an'  you're  now  stouter  and  bigger  than  maist  o'  them. 
Eh,  sirs!  —  an'  are  ye  still  a  mason?"  "No;  I  have  not 
wrought  as  a  mason  for  the  last  fourteen  years  ;  but  I  have 
to  work  hard  enough  for  all  that."  "  Weel,  Avcel,  it 's  our 
appointed  lot ;  an'  if  we  have  but  health  an'  strength,  an' 
the  wark  to  do,  why  should  we  repine  ? "  Once  fairly 
entered  oh  our  talk  together,  we  gossipped  on  till  the 
night  fell,  giving  and  receiving  information  regal-ding  our 
old  acquaintances  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  ;  of 
whom  we  found  that  no  inconsiderable  proportion  had 
already  sunk  in  the  stream  in  which  eventually  we  must 
all  disappear.  And  then,  taking  leave  of  the  kindly  old 
woman,  I  walked  on  in  the  dark  to  Dingwall,  where  I 
spent  the  night.  I  could  fain  have  called  by  the  way  on 
my  old  friend  and  brother-workman,  Mr.  Urquhart,  —  of  a 
very  numerous  party  of  mechanics  employed  at  Conon- 
side  in  the  year  1821  the  only  individual  now  resident  in 
this  part  of  the  country ;  but  the  lateness  of  the  hour  for- 
bade. Next  morning  I  returned  by  the  Conon  road,  as 
far  as  the  noble  old  bridge  which  strides  across  the  stream 
at  the  village,  and  which  has  done  so  much  to  banish  the 
water- wraith  from  the  fords ;  and  then  striking  off  to  the 
right,  I  crossed,  by  a  path  comparatively  little  frequented, 
the  insulated  group  of  hills  which  sepai-ates  the  valley  of 


392  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

the  Conon  from  that  of  the  Peffer.  The  day  was  mild 
and  pleasant,  and  the  atmosphere  clear;  but  the  higher 
hills  again  exhibited  their  ominous  belts  of  vapor,  and 
there  had  been  a  slight  frost  during  the  night,  —  at  this 
autumnal  season  the  almost  certain  precursor  of  rain. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

The  Great  Conglomerate  —  Its  Undulatory  and  Rectilinear  Members  —  Knock 
Farril  and  its  Vitrified  Fort  —  The  old  Highlanders  an  observant  race  —  The 
Vein  of  Silver — Summit  of  Knock  Farril  —  Mode  of  accounting  for  the 
Luxuriance  of  Herbage  in  the  ancient  Scottish  Fortalices  —  The  green  Graves 
of  Culloden  —  Theories  respecting  the  Vitrification  of  the  Hill-forts  —  Com- 
bined Theories  of  Williams  and  Mackenzie  probably  give  the  correct  account 

—  The  Author's  Explanation — Transformations  of  Fused  Rocks —  Strathpeffer 

—  The  Spa  —  Permanent  Odoriferous  Qualities  of  an  ancient  Sea-bottom  con- 
verted into  Rock  —  Mineral  Springs  of  the  Spa  —  Infusion  of  the  powdered 
rock  a  substitute  —  Belemnite  Water  —  The  lively  young  Lady's  Comments 

—  A  befogged    Country  seen  from    a    hill-top  —  Ben- Wy  vis —  Journey  to 
Evanton  —  A  Geologist's  Kight-mare  —  The  Route  Home  —  Ruins  of  Craig- 
house —  Incompatibility  of  Tea  and  Ghosts  —  End  of  the  Tour. 

I  WAS  once  more  on  the  Great  Conglomerate, — here,  as 
elsewhere,  a  picturesque,  boldly-featured  deposit,  traversed 
by  naiTow,  mural-sided  valleys,  and  tempested  by  bluff 
abrupt  eminences.  Its  hills  are  greatly  less  confluent  than 
those  of  most  of  the  other  sedimentary  formations  of  Scot- 
land ;  and  their  insulated  summits,  recommended  by  their 
steep  sides  and  limited  areas  to  the  old  savage  Vaubans  of 
the  Highlands,  furnished,  ere  the  historic  eras  began,  sites 
for  not  a  few  of  the  ancient  hill-forts  of  the  country.  The 
vitrified  fort  of  Craig  Phadrig,  of  the  Ord  Hill  of  Kessock, 
and  of  Knock  Farril,  —  two  of  the  number,  the  first  and 
last,  being  the  most  celebrated  erections  of  their  kind  in  the 
north  of  Scotland,  —  were  all  formed  on  hills  of  the  Great 
Conglomerate.  The  Conglomerate  exists  here  as  a  sort  of 
miniature  Highlands,  set  down  at  the  northern  side  of  a 
large  angular  bay  of  Pala?ozoic  rock,  which  indents  the  true 
Highlands  of  the  country,  and  which  exhibits  in  its  central 


394  RAMBLES    OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

area  a  prolongation  of  the  long  moory  ridge  of  the  Black 
Isle,  formed,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark,  of 
an  upper  deposit  of  the  same  lower  division  of  the  Old 
Red,  —  a  deposit  as  noticeable  for  affecting  a  confluent, 
rectilinear  character  in  its  elevations,  as  the  Conglomerate 
is  remarkable  for  exhibiting  a  detached  and  undulatory  one. 
Exactly  the  same  features  are  presented  by  the  same  de- 
posits in  the  neighborhood  of  Inverness ;  the  undulatory 
Conglomerate  composing,  to  the  north  and  west  of  the 
town,  the  picturesque  wavy  ridge  comprising  the  twin- 
eminences  of  Munlochy  Bay,  the  Ord  Hill  of  Kessock,  Craig 
Phadrig,  and  the  fir-covered  hill  beyond  in  the  line  of  the 
Great  Valley ;  while  on  the  south  and  east  the  rectilinear 
ichthyolitic  member  of  the  system,  with  the  arenaceous 
beds  that  lie  over  it,  form  the  continuous  straight-lined 
ridge  which  runs  on  from  beyond  the  moor  of  the  Leys  to 
beyond  the  moor  of  Culloden.  There  is  a  pretty  little  loch 
in  this  dwarf  Highlands  of  the  Brahan  disti-ict,  into  which 
the  old  Celtic  prophet  Kenneth  Ore,  when,  like  Prospero, 
he  relinquished  his  art,  buried  "  deep  beyond  plummet 
sound "  the  magic  stone  in  which  he  was  wont  to  see  the 
distant  and  the  future.  And  with  the  loch  it  contains  a 
narrow,  hermit-like  dell,  bearing  but  a  single  row  of  fields, 
and  these  of  small  size,  along  its  flat  bottom,  and  whose 
steep  gray  sides  of  rustic  Conglomerate  resemble  Cyclopean 
Avails.  It,  besides,  includes  among  its  hills  the  steep  hill  of 
Knock  Farril,  which,  rising  bluff  and  bold  immediately 
over  the  southern  slopes  of  Strathpeffer,  adds  so  greatly 
to  the  beauty  of  the  valley,  and  bears  atop  perhaps  the 
finest  specimen  of  the  vitrified  fort  in  Scotland ;  and  the 
bold  frontage  of  cliff  presented  by  the  group  to  the  west, 
over  the  pleasure  grounds  of  Brahan,  is,  though  on  no 
very  large  scale,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  of  the 
Conglomerate  formation  which  can  be  .set'ii  anywhere. 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  395 

It  is  formed  of  exactly  such  cliffs  as  the  landscape  gar- 
dener would  make  if  he  could,  —  cliffs  with  their  rude 
prominent  pebbles  breaking  the  light  over  every  square 
foot  of  surface,  and  furnishing  footing,  by  their  innumera- 
ble projections,  to  many  a  green  tuft  of  moss,  and  many  a 
sweet  little  flower.  Some  of  the  masses,  too,  that  have 
rolled  down  from  the  precipices  among  the  Brahan  woods 
far  below,  and  stand  up,  like  the  ruins  of  cottages,  amid 
the  trees,  are  of  singular  beauty, — worth  all  the  imitation- 
ruins  ever  erected,  and  obnoxious  to  none  of  the  disparag- 
ing associations  which  the  mere  show  and  make-believe  of 
the  artificial  are  sure  always  to  awaken. 

Whatever  exhibited  an  aspect  in  any  degree  extraordi- 
nary was  sure  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  old  Highlanders, 

—  an  acutely  observant  race,  however  slightly  developed 
their  reflective    powers;    and   the  great  natural  objects 
which  excited  their  attention  we  always  find  associated 
with  some  traditionary  story.     It  is  said  that  in  the  Con- 
glomerate cliffs  above  Brahan,  a  retainer  of  the  Mackenzie, 
one  of  the  smiths  of  the  tribe,  discovered  a  rich  vein  of 
silver,  which  he  wrought  by  stealth,  until  he  had  filled  one 
of  the  apartments  of  his  cottage  with  bars  and  ingots.    But 
the  treasure,  it  is  added,  was  betrayed  by  his  own  unfor- 
tunate vanity,  to  his  chief,  who  hanged  him  in  order  to 
serve  himself  his  heir  ;   and  no  one  since  his  death   has 
proved  ingenious  enough  to  convert  the  rude  rock  into 
silver.     Years  had,  I  found,  wrought  their  changes  amid 
the  miniature  Highlands  of  the  Conglomerate.     The  sap- 
plings  of  the  straggling  wood  on  the  banks  of  Loch  Ousy, 

—  the  pleasant  little  lake,  or  lochan  rather,  of  this  upland 
region,  —  that   I  remembered   having   seen   scarce  taller 
than   myself,  had  shot  into  vigorous  treehood  ;  and  the 
steep   slopes  of  Knock  Farril,  which  I  had  left  covered 
with  their  dark  screen  of  pine,  were  now  thickly  mottled 


396  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

over  with  half-decayed  stumps,  and  bore  that  peculiarly 
barren  aspect  which  tracts  cleared  of  their  wood  .so  fre- 
quently assume  in  their  transition  state,  when  the  plants 
that  flourished  in  the  shade  have  died  out  in  consequence 
of  the  exposure,  and  plants  that  love  the  open  air  and  the 
unbroken  sunshine  have  not  yet  sprung  up  in  their  place. 
I  found  the  southern  acclivities  of  the  hill  covei-ed  with 
scattered  masses  of  vitrified  stone,  that  had  fallen  from  the 
fortalice  atop  ;  and  would  recommend  to  the  collector  in 
quest  of  a  characteristic  specimen,  that  instead  of  laboring, 
to  the  general  detriment  of  the  pile,  in  detaching  one 
from  the  walls  above,  he  should  set  himself  to  seek  one 
here.  The  blocks,  uninjured  by  the  hammer,  exhibit,  in 
most  cases,  the  angular  character  of  the  original  fragments 
better  than  those  forcibly  detached  from  the  mass,  and 
preserve  in  fine  keeping  those  hollower  interstices  which 
were  but  partially  filled  with  the  molten  matter,  and 
which,  when  shattered  by  a  blow,  break  through  and  lose 
their  character. 

One  may  spend  an  hour  very  agreeably  on  the  green 
summit  of  Knock  Farril.  And  at  almost  all  seasons  of 
the  year  a  green  summit  it  is, — greener  considerably  than 
any  other  hill-top  in  this  part  of  the  country.  The  more 
succulent  grasses  spring  up  rich  and  strong  within  the 
walls,  here  and  there  roughened  by  tufts  of  nettles,  tall 
and  rank,  and  somewhat  perilous  of  approach,  —  wit- 
nesses, say  the  botanists,  that  man  had  once  a  dAvelling  iu 
the  immediate  neighborhood.  The  green  luxuriance  which 
characterizes  so  many  of  the  more  ancient  fortalices  of 
Scotland  seems  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  Dr.  Flem- 
ing, in  his  "  Zoology  of  the  Bass."  "  The  summits  and 
sides  of  those  hills  which  were  occupied  by  our  ancestors 
as  hill-forts?  says  the  naturalist,  "  usually  exhibit  a  far 
richer  herbage  than  corresponding  heights  in  the  neigh- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  397 

borhood  with  the  mineral  soil  derived  from  the  same 
source.  It  is  to  be  kept  in  view,  that  these  positions  of 
strength  were  at  the  same  time  occupied  as  lull-folds,  into 
which,  during  the  •  threatened  or  actual  invasion  of  the 
district  by  a  hostile  tribe,  the  cattle  were  driven,  especially 
during  the  night,  as  to  places  of  safety,  and  sent  out  to 
pasture  in  the  neighborhood  during  the  day.  And  the 
droppings  of  these  collected  herds  would,  as  takes  place 
in  analogous  cases  at  present,  speedily  improve  the  soil  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  induce  a  permanent  fertility."  The 
further  instance  adduced  by  the  Doctor,  in  showing  through 
what  protracted  periods  causes  transitory  in  themselves 
may  remain  palpably  influential  in  their  effects,  is  curi- 
ously suggestive  of  the  old  metaphysical  idea,  that  as 
every  effect  has  its  cause,  "  recurring  from  cause  to  cause 
up  to  the  abyss  of  eternity,  so  every  cause  has  also  its 
effects,  linked  forward  in  succession  to  the  end  of  time." 
On  the  bleak  moor  of  Culloden  the  graves  of  the  slain  still 
exist  as  patches  of  green  sward,  surrounded  by  a  brown 
groundwoi'k  of  stunted  heather.  The  animal  matter,  — 
once  the  nerves,  muscles,  and  sinews  of  brave  men, — 
which  originated  the  change,  must  have  been  wholly  dissi- 
pated ages  ago.  But  the  effect  once  produced  has  so 
decidedly  maintained  itself,  that  it  remains  not  less  dis- 
tinctly stamped  upon  the  heath  in  the  present  day  than  it 
could  have  been  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  only  a 
few  years  after  the  battle  had  been  stricken. 

The  vitrification  of  the  rampart  which  on  every  side  in- 
closes the  grassy  area  has  been  more  variously,  but  less 
satisfactorily,  accounted  for  than  the  green  luxuriance 
within.  It  was  held  by  Pennant  to  be  an  effect  of  volcanic 
fire,  and  that  the  walls  of  this  and  all  our  other  vitrified 
strongholds  are  simply  the  crater-rims  of  extinct  volcanoes, 
—  a  hypothesis  wholly  as  untenable  in  reference  to  the 
84 


898  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

hill-forts  as  to  the  lime-kilns  of  the  country:  the  vitrified 
forts  are  as  little  volcanic  as  the  vitrified  kilns.  Williams, 
the  author  of  the  "  Mineral  Kingdom,"  and  one  of  our 
earlier  British  geologists,  after  deciding,  on  data  which  his 
peculiar  pursuits  enabled  him  to  collect  and  weigh,  that 
they  are  not  volcanic,  broached  the  theory,  still  prevalent, 
as  their  name  testifies,  that  they  are  artificial  structures,  in 
which  vitrescency  was  designedly  induced,  in  order  to 
cement  into  solid  masses  accumulations  of  loose  materials. 
Lord  Woodhouselee  advocated  an  opposite  view.  Resting 
on  the  fact  that  the  vitrification  is  but  of  partial  occurrence, 
he  held  that  it  had  been  produced,  not  of  design  by  the  build- 
ers of  the  forts,  but  in  the  process  of  their  demolition  by  a 
besieging  enemy,  who,  finding,  as  he  premised,  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  ramparts  composed  of  wood,  had  succeeded  in 
setting  them  on  fire.  This  hypothesis,  however,  seems 
quite  as  untenable  as  that  of  Pennant.  Fires  not  unfre- 
quently  occur  in  cities,  among  crowded  groups  of  houses, 
where  walls  of  stone  are  surrounded  by  a  much  greater 
profusion  of  dry  woodwork  than  could  possibly  have  entered 
into  the  composition  of  the  ramparts  of  a  hill-fort ;  but 
who  ever  saw,  after  a  city  fire,  masses  of  wall  from  eight 
to  ten  feet  in  thickness  fused  throughout  ?  The  sandstone 
columns  of  the  aisles  of  the  Old  Greyfriars  in  Edinburgh, 
surrounded  by  the  woodwork  of  the  galleries,  the  flooring, 
the  seating,  and  the  roof,  were  wasted,  during  the  fire 
which  destroyed  the  pile,  into  mere  skeletons  of  their 
former  selves ;  but  though  originally  not  more  than  three 
feet  in  diameter,  they  exhibited  no  marks  of  vitrescency. 
And  it  does  not  seem  in  the  least  probable  that  the  stone- 
work of  the  Knock  Farril  rampart  could,  if  surrounded  by 
wood  at  all,  have  been  surrounded  by  an  amount  equally 
great,  in  proportion  to  its  mass,  as  that  which  enveloped 
the  aisle-columns  of  the  Old  Grevlriars. 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

The  late  Sir  George  Mackenzie  of  Coul  adopted  yet  a 
fourth  view.  He  held  that  the  vitrification  is  simply  an 
effect  of  the  ancient  beacon-fires  kindled  to  warn  the 
country  of  an  invading  enemy.  But  how  account,  on  this 
hypothesis,  for  ramparts  continuous,  as  in  the  case  of  Knock 
Farril,  all  round  the  hill?  A  powerful  fire  long  kept  up 
might  well  fuse  a  heap  of  loose  stones  into  a  solid  mass ; 
the  bonfire  lighted  on  the  summit  of  Arthur  Seat  in  1842, 
to  welcome  the  Queen  on  her  first  visit  to  Scotland,  par- 
ticularly fused  numerous  detached  fragments  of  basalt,  and 
imparted,  in  some  spots  to  the  depth  of  about  half  an  inch, 
a  vesicular  structure  to  the  solid  rock  beneath.  But  no 
fire,  however  powerful,  could  have  constructed  a  rampart 
running  without  break  for  several  hundred  feet  round  an 
insulated  hill-top.  "To  be  satisfied,"  said  Sir  George,  "of 
the  reason  why  the  signal-fires  should  be  kindled  on  or 
beside  a  heap  of  stones,  we  have  only  to  imagine  a  gale  of 
wind  to  have  arisen  when  a  fire  was  kindled  on  the  bare 
ground.  The  fuel  would  be  blown  about  and  dispersed, 
to  the  great  annoyance  of  those  who  attended.  The  plan 
for  obviating  the  inconvenience  thus  occasioned  which 
would  occur  most  naturally  and  readily  would  be  to  raise  a 
heap  of  stones,  on  either  side  of  which  the  fire  might  be 
placed  to  windward ;  and  to  account  for  the  vitrification 
appearing  all  round  the  area,  it  is  only  necessary  to  allow 
the  inhabitants  of  the  country  to  have  had  a  system  of 
signals.  A  fire  at  one  end  might  denote  something  differ- 
ent from  a  fire  at  the  other,  or  in  some  intermediate  part. 
On  some  occasions  two  or  more  fires  might  be  necessary, 
and  sometimes  a  fire  along  the  whole  line.  It  cannot  be 
doubted,"  he  adds,  "  that  the  rampart  was  oi'iginally  formed 
with  as  much  regularity  as  the  nature  of  the  materials 
would  allow,  both  in  order  to  render  it  more  durable,  and 
to  make  it  serve  the  purposes  of  defence."  This,  I  am 


400  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

afraid,  is  still  very  unsatisfactory.  A  fire  lighted  along  the 
entire  line  of  a  wall  inclosing  nearly  an  acre  of  area  could 
not  be  other  than  a  very  attenuated,  wire-drawn  line  of 
fire  indeed,  and  could  never  possess  strength  enough  to 
melt  the  pondei'ous  mass  of  rampart  beneath,  as  if  it  had 
been  formed  of  wax  or  resin.  A  thousand  loads  of  wood 
piled  in  a  ring  round  the  summit  of  Knock  Farril,  and  set 
at  once  into  a  blaze,  would  wholly  fail  to  affect  the  broad 
rampart  below  ;  and  long  ere  even  a  thousand,  or  half  a 
thousand,  loads  could  have  been  cut  down,  collected,  and 
fired,  an  invading  enemy  would  have  found  time  enough 
to  moor  his  fleet  and  land  his  forces,  and  possess  himself 
of  the  lower  country.  Again,  the  unbroken  continuity  of 
the  vitrified  line  militates  against  the  signal-system  theory. 
Fire  trod  so  closely  upon  the  heels  of  fire,  that  the  vitivs- 
cency  induced  by  the  one  fire  impinged  on  and  mingled 
with  the  vitresceucy  induced  by  the  others  beside  it. 
There  is  no  other  mode  of  accounting  for  the  continuity 
of  the  fusion ;  and  how  could  definite  meanings  possibly 
be  attached  to  the  various  parts  of  a  line  so  minutely 
graduated,  that  the  centre  of  the  fire  kindled  on  any  one 
graduation  could  be  scarce  ten  feet  apart  from  the  centre 
of  the  fire  kindled  on  any  of  its  two  neighboring  gradua- 
tions? Even  by  day,  the  exact  compartment  which  a  fire 
occupied  could  not  be  distinguished,  at  the  distance  of  half 
a  mile,  from  its  neighboring  compartments,  and  not  at  all 
by  night,  at  any  distance,  from  even  the  compartments 
farthest  removed  from  it.  Who,  for  instance,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  a  dozen  miles  or  so,  could  tell  whether  the  flame 
that  shone  out  in  the  darkness,  when  all  other  objects 
around  it  were  invisible,  was  kindled  on  the  east  or  west 
end  of  an  eminence  little  more  than  a  hundred  yards  in 
length?  Nay,  who  could  determine,  —  for  such  is  the 
requirement  of  the  hypothesis,  —  whether  it  rose  from  a 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  401 

compartment  of  the  summit  a  hundred  feet  distant  from  its 
west  or  east  end,  or  from  a  compartment  merely  ninety  or 
a  hundred  and  ten  feet  distant  from  it?  The  supposed 
signal  system,  added  to  the  mere  beacon  hypothesis,  is 
palpably  untenable. 

The  theory  of  Williams,  however,  which  is,  I  am  inclined 
to  think,  the  true  one  in  the  main,  seems  capable  of  being 
considerably  modified  and  improved  by  the  hypothesis  of 
Sir  George.  The  hill-fort,  —  palpably  the  most  primitive 
form  of  fortalice  or  stronghold  originated  in  a  mountain- 
ous country,  —  seems  to  constitute  man's  first  essay 
towards  neutralizing,  by  the  art  of  fortification,  the  advan- 
tages of  superior  force  on  the  side  of  an  assailing  enemy. 
It  was  found,  on  the  discovery  of  New  Zealand,  that  the 
savage  inhabitants  had  already  learned  to  erect  exactly 
such  hill-forts  amid  the  fastnesses  of  that  country  as  those 
which  were  erected  two  thousand  years  earlier  by  the 
Scottish  aborigines  amid  the  fastnesses  of  our  own. 
Nothing  seems  more  probable,  therefore,  than  that  the 
forts  of  eminences  such  as  Craig  Phadrig  and  Knock  Far- 
ril,  originally  mere  inclosures  of  loose,  uncemented  stones, 
may  belong  to  a  period  not  less  ancient  than  that  of  the 
first  barbarous  wars  of  Scotland,  when,  though  tribe  bat- 
tled with  tribe  in  fierce  warfare,  like  the  red  men  of  the 
West  with  their  brethren  ere  the  European  had  landed  on 
their  shores,  navigation  was  yet  in  so  immature  a  state  in 
Northern  Europe  as  to  secure  to  them  an  exemption  from 
foreign  invasion.  In  an  after  age,  however,  when  the  rov- 
ing Vikingr  had  become  formidable,  many  of  the  emi- 
nences originally  selected,  from  their  inaccessibility,  as 
sites  for  hill-forts,  would  come  to  be  chosen,  from  their 
prominence  in  the  landscape,  as  stations  for  beacon-fires. 
And  of  coui-se  the  previously  erected  ramparts,  higher 
always  than  the  inclosed  areas,  would  furnish  on  such  hills 
34* 


402  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

the  conspicuous  points  from  which  the  fires  could  be  best 
seen.  Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  the  rampart-crested  emi- 
nence of  Knock  Farril,  seen  on  every  side  for  many  miles, 
has  become  in  the  age  of  northern  invasion  one  of  the 
beacon-posts  of  the  district,  and  that  large  fires,  abund- 
antly supplied  with  fuel  by  the  woods  of  a  forest-covered 
country,  and  blown  at  times  into  intense  heat  by  the 
strong  winds  so  frequent  in  that  upper  stratum  of  air  into 
which  the  summit  penetrates,  have  been  kindled  some  six 
or  eight  times  on  some  prominent  point  of  the  rampart, 
raised,  mayhap,  many  centuries  before.  At  first  the  heat 
has  failed  to  tell  on  the  stubborn  quartz  and  feldspar 
which  forms  the  preponderating  material  of  the  gneisses, 
granites,  quartz  rocks,  and  coarse  conglomerate  sandstones 
on  which  it  has  been  brought  to  operate ;  but  each  fire 
throws  down  into  the  interstices  a  considerable  amount  of 
the  fixed  salt  of  the  wood,  till  at  length  the  heap  has 
become  charged  with  a  strong  flux ;  and  then  one  power- 
ful fire  more,  fanned  to  a  white  heat  by  a  keen,  dry  breeze, 
reduces  the  whole  into  a  semi-fluid  mass.  The  same 
effects  have  been  produced  on  the  materials  of  the  ram- 
part by  the  beacon-fires  and  the  alkali,  that  were  pro- 
duced, according  to  Pliny,  by  the  fires  and  the  soda  of  the 
Phrenician  merchants  storrii-bound  on  the  sands  of  the 
river  Belus.  But  the  state  of  civilization  in  Scotland  at 
the  time  is  not  such  as  to  permit  of  the  discovery  being 
followed  up  by  similar  results.  The  semi-savage  guardians 
of  the  beacon  wonder  at  the  accident ',  as  they  well  may; 
but  those  happy  accidents  in  which  the  higher  order  of 
discoveries  originate  occur  in  only  the  ages  of  cultivated 
minds;  and  so  they  do  not  acquire  from  it  the  art  of  man- 
ufacturing glass.  It  could  not  fail  being  perceived,  how- 
ever, by  intellects  at  all  human,  that  the  consolidation 
which  the  tires  of  one  week,  ov  month,  or  year,  as  the  case 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  403 

happened,  had  effected  on  one  poi'tion  of  the  wall,  might 
be  produced  by  the  fires  of  another  week,  or  month,  or 
year,  on  another  portion  of  it ;  that,  in  short,  a  loose  inco- 
herent rampart,  easy  of  demolition,  might  be  converted, 
through  the  newly-discovered  process,  into  a  rampart  as 
solid  and  indestructible  as  the  rock  on  which  it  rested. 
And  so,  in  course  of  time,  simply  by  shifting  the  beacon- 
fires,  and  bringing  them  to  bear  in  succession  on  every 
part  of  the  wall,  Knock  Farril,  Avith  many  a  similar  emi- 
nence in  the  country,  comes  to  exhibit  its  completely  vitri- 
fied fort  where  there  had  been  but  a  loosely-piled  hill-fort 
before.  It  in  no  degree  militates  against  this  compound 
theory,  —  borrowed  in  part  from  Williams  and  in  part 
from  Sir  George, — that  there  are  detached  vitrified  masses 
to  be  found  on  eminences  evidently  never  occupied  by 
hill-forts ;  or  that  there  are  hill-forts  on  other  eminences 
only  partially  fused,  or  hill-forts  on  many  of  the  less  com- 
manding sites  that  bear  about  them  no  marks  of  fire  at  all. 
Nothing  can  be  more  probable  than  that  in  the  first  class 
of  cases  we  have  eminences  that  had  been  selected  as  bea- 
con-stations, which  had  not  previously  been  occupied  by 
hill-forts ;  and  in  the  last,  eminences  that  had  been  occu- 
pied by  hill-forts  which,  from  their  want  of  prominence  in 
the  general  landscape,  had  not  been  selected  as  beacon- 
stations.  And  in  the  intermediate  class  of  cases  we  have 
probably  ramparts  that  were  only  partially  vitrified, 
because  some  want  of  fuel  in  the  neighborhood  had 
starved  the  customary  fires,  or  because  fires  had  to  be  less 
frequently  kindled  upon  them  than  on  the  more  important 
stations;  or,  finally,  because  these  hill-forts,  from  some 
disadvantage  of  situation,  were  no  longer  used  as  places 
of  strength,  and  so  the  beacon-keepers  had  no  motive  to 
attempt  consolidating  them  throughout  by  the  piecemeal 
application  of  the  vitrifying  agent.  But  the  old  Highland 


404  RAMBLES   OP   A   GEOLOGIST. 

mode  of  accounting  for  the  present  appearance  of  Knock 
Farril  and  its  vitrified  remains  is  perhaps,  after  all,  quite 
as  good  in  its  way  as  any  of  the  modes  suggested  by  the 
philosophers.* 

I  spent  some  time,  agreeably  enough,  beside  the  rude 
rampart  of  Knock  Farril,  ia  marking  the  various  appear- 
ances exhibited  by  the  fused  and  semi-fused  materials  of 
which  it  is  composed,  —  the  granites,  gneisses,  mica-schists, 
hornblendes,  clay-slates,  and  red  sandstones  of  the  locality. 
One  piece  of  rock,  containing  much  lime,  I  found  resolved 
into  a  yellow  opaque  substance,  not  unlike  the  coarse  earth- 
enware' used  in  the  making  of  ginger-beer  bottles;  but 
though  it  had  been  so  completely  molten  that  it  had 
dropped  into  a  hollow  beneath  in  long  viscid  trails,  it  did 
not  contain  a  single  air-vesicle ;  while  another  specimen, 
apparently  a  piece  of  fused  mica-schist,  was  so  filled  with 
air-cells,  that  the  dividing  partitions  were  scarcely  the  tenth 
of  a  line  in  thickness.  I  found  bits  of  schistose  gneiss  re- 
solved into  green  glass ;  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  basis  of 
the  Conglomerate,  which  forms  the  hill,  into  a  semi-metallic 
scoria,  like  that  of  an  iron-smelter's  furnace ;  mica  into  a 
gray,  waxy-looking  stone,  that  scratched  glass ;  and  pure 
white  quartz  into  poi-ccllanic  trails  of  white,  that  ran  in  one 
instance  along  the  face  of  a  darker-colored  rock  below,  like 
streaks  of  cream  along  the  sides  of  a  burnt  china  jug.  In 
one  mass  of  pale  large-grained  granite  I  found  that  the  feld- 
spar, though  it  had  acquired  a  vitreous  gloss  on  the  surface, 
still  retained  its  peculiar  rhomboidal  cleavage ;  while  the 
less  stubborn  quartz  around  it  had  become  scarce  less 
vesicular  and  light  than  a  piece  of  pumice.  On  some  of  the 
other  masses  there  was  impressed,  as  if  by  a  seal,  the  stamp 

*  This  mode  is  described  in  a  traditionary  story  regarding  a  gigantic 
tribe  of  Ffons,  narrated  in  "  Scenes  and  Legends  of  the  North  of  Scot- 
land," chap.  iv. 


RAMBLES    OP  A   GEOLOGIST.  405 

of  pieces  of  charcoal;  and  so  sharply  was  the  impression  re- 
tained, that  I  could  detect  on  the  vitreous  surface  the  mark 
of  the  yearly  growths,  and  even  of  the  medullary  rays,  of 
the  wood.  In  breaking  open  some  of  the  others,  I  detected 
fragments  of  the  charcoal  itself,  which,  hermetically  locked 
up  in  the  rock,  had  retained  all  its  original  carbon.  These 
last  reminded  me  of  specimens  not  unfrequent  among  the 
trap-rocks  of  the  Carboniferous  and  Oolitic  systems.  From 
an  intrusive  overlying  Avacke  in  the  neighborhood  of  Lin- 
lithgow  I  have  derived  for  my  collection  pieces  of  carbonized 
Avood  in  so  complete  a  state  of  keeping,  that  under  the  mi- 
croscope they  exhibit  unbroken  all  the  characteristic  reticu- 
lations of  the  conifera  of  the  Coal  Measures. 

I  descended  the  hill,  and,  after  joining  my  friends  at 
Strathpeffer, —  Buchubai  Hormazdji  among  the  rest,  —  vis- 
ited the  Spa,  in  the  company  of  my  old  friend  the  minister 
of  Alness.  The  thorough  identity  of  the  powerful  effluvium 
that  fills  the  pump-room  with  that  of  a  muddy  sea-bottom 
laid  bare  in  warm  weather  by  the  tide,  is  to  the  dweller  on 
the  sea-coast  very  striking.  It  is  identity, — not  mere 
resemblance.  In  most  cases  the  organic  substances  undergo 
great  changes  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  The  animal  mat- 
ter of  the  Caithness  ichthyolites  exists,  for  instance,  as  a 
hard,  black,  insoluble  bitumen,  which  I  have  used  oftener 
than  once  as  sealing-wax :  the  vegetable  mould  of  the  Coal 
Measures  has  been  converted  into  a  fire-clay,  so  altered  in 
the  organic  pabulum,  animal  and  vegetable,  whence  it  de- 
rived its  fertility,  that,  even  when  laid  open  for  years  to  the 
meliorating  effects  of  the  weather  and  the  visits  of  the 
winged  seeds,  it  will  not  be  found  bearing  a  single  spike  or 
leaf  of  green.  But  here,  in  smell,  at  least,  that  ancient  mud, 
swum  over  by  the  Diplopterus  and  the  Diplacanthus,  and  in 
which  the  Coccosteus  and  Pterichthys  burrowed,  has  under- 
gone no  change.  The  soft  ooze  has  become  solid  rock,  but 


406  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

its  odoriferous  qualities  have  remained  unaltered.  I  next 
visited  an  excavation  a  few  hundred  yards  on  the  upper  side 
of  the  pump-room,  in  which  the  gray  fetid  breccia  of  the 
Strath  has  been  quarried  for  dyke-building,  and  examined 
the  rock  with  some  degree  of  care,  without,  however,  de- 
tecting in  it  a  single  plate  or  scale.  Lying  over  that  Con- 
glomerate member  of  the  system  which,  rising  high  in  the 
Knock  Farril  range,  forms  the  southern  boundary  of  the 
valley,  it  occupies  the  place  of  the  lower  ichthyolitic  bed,  so 
rich  in  organisms  in  various  other  parts  of  the  country ;  but 
here  the  bed,  after  it  had  been  deposited  in  thin  horizontal 
laminaB,  and  had  hardened  into  stone,  seems  to  have  been 
broken  up,  by  some  violent  movement,  into  minute  sharp- 
edged  fragments,  that,  without  wear  or  attrition,  were  again 
consolidated  into  the  breccia  which  it  now  forms.  And  its 
ichthyolites,  if  not  previously  absorbed,  were  probably 
destroyed  in  the  convulsion.  Detached  scales  and  spines, 
however,  if  carefully  sought  for  in  the  various  openings  of 
the  valley,  might  still  be  found  in  the  original  lamina?  of  the 
fragments.  They  must  have  been  amazingly  abundant  in  it 
once  ;  for  so  largely  saturated  is  the  rock  with  the  organic 
matter  into  which  they  have  been  resolved,  that,  when 
struck  by  the  hammer,  the  impalpable  dust  set  loose  sensibly 
affects  the  organs  of  taste,  and  appeals  very  strongly  to 
those  of  smell.  It  is  through  this  saturated  rock  that  the 
mineral  springs  take  their  course.  Even  the  surface-waters 
of  the  valley,  as  they  pass  over  it  contract  in  a  perceptible 
degree  its  peculiar  taste  and  odor.  With  a  little  more 
time  to  spare,  I  would  fain  have  made  this  breccia  of  the 
Old  Red  the  subject  of  a  few  simple  experiments.  I  would 
have  ground  it  into  powder,  and  tried  upon  it  the  effect 
both  of  cold  and  hot  infusion.  Portions  of  the  water  are 
sometimes  carried  in  casks  and  bottles,  for  the  use  of  inva- 
lids, to  a  considerable  distance ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  that 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  407 

a  little  of  the  rock,  to  which  the  water  owes  its  qualities, 
might,  when  treated  in  this  way,  have  all  the  effects  of  a 
considerable  quantity  of  the  spring.  It  might  be  of  some 
interest,  too,  to  ascertain  its  qualities  when  crushed,  as  a 
soil,  or  its  effect  on  other  soils ;  whether,  for  instance,  like 
the  old  sterile  soils  of  the  Carboniferous  period,  it  has  lost, 
through  its  rock-change,  the  fertilizing  properties  which  it 
once  possessed ;  or  whether  it  still  retains  them,  like  some 
of  the  coprolitic  beds  of  the  Oolite  and  Greensand,  and 
might  not,  in  consequence,  be  employed  as  a  manure.  A 
course  of  such  experiments  could  scarce  fail  to  furnish  with 
agreeable  occupation  some  of  the  numerous  annual  visitants 
of  the  Spa,  who  have  to  linger  long,  with  but  little  to  en- 
gage them,  waiting  for  what,  if  it  once  fairly  leave  a  man, 
returns  slo\vly,  when  it  returns  at  all. 

In  mentioning  at  the  dinner-table  of  my  friend  my  scheme 
of  infusing  rock  in  order  to  produce  Spa  water,  I  referred 
to  the  circumstance  that  the  Belemnite  of  our  Liasic  de- 
posits, when  ground  into  powder,  imparts  to  boiling  water 
a  peculiar  taste  and  smell,  and  that  the  infusion,  taken  in 
very  small  quantities,  sensibly  affects  both  palate  and  stom- 
ach. And  I  suggested  that  Belemnite  water,  deemed 

OO  7 

sovereign  of  old,  when  the  Belemnite  was  regarded  as  a 
thunderbolt,  in  the  cure  of  bewitched  cattle,  might  be  in 
reality  medicinal,  and  that  the  ancient  superstition  might 
thus  embody,  as  ancient  superstitions  not  unfrequently  do, 
a  nucleus  of  fact.  The  charm,  I  said,  might  amount  to  no 
more  than  simply  the  administration  of  a  medicine  to  sick 
cattle,  that  did  harm  in  no  case,  and  good  at  times. 
The  lively  comment  of  one  of  the  young  ladies  on  the 
remark  amused  us  all.  If  an  infusion  of  stone  had  cured, 
in  the  last  age,  cattle  that  were  bewitched,  the  Strathpeffer 
water,  she  argued,  which  was,  it  seems,  but  an  infusion  of 
stone,  might  cure  cattle  that  were  sick  now ;  and  so,  though 


408  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

the  biped  patients  of  the  Strath  could  scarce  fail  to  decrease 
when  they  knew  that  its  infused  stone  contained  but  the 
strainings  of  old  mud,  and  the  juices  of  dead  unsalted  fish, 
it  was  gratifying  to  think  that  the  poor  Spa  might  still  con- 
tinue to  retain  its  patients,  though  of  a  lower  order.  The 
pump-room  would  be  converted  into  a  rustic,  straw-thatched 
shed,  to  which  long  trains  of  sick  cattle,  affected  by  weak 
nerves  and  dyspepsia,  would  come  streaming  along  the 
roads  every  morning  and  evening,  to  drink  and  gather 
strength. 

The  following  morning  was  wet  and  lowering,  and  a 
flat  ceiling  of  gray  cloud  stretched  across  the  valley,  from 
the  summit  of  the  Knock  Farril  ridge  of  hills  on  the  one 
side,  to  the  lower  flanks  of  Ben-Wevis  on  the  other.  I 
had  purposed  ascending  this  latter  'mountain,  —  the  giant 
of  the  northeastern  coast,  and  one  of  the  loftiest  of  our 
second-class  Scottish  hills  anywhere,  —  to  ascertain  the 
extreme  upper  line  at  which  travelled  boulders  occur  in 
this  part  of  the  country.  But  it  was  no  morning  for 
wading  knee-deep  through  the  trackless  heather;  and 
after  waiting  on,  in  the  hope  the  weather  might  clear  up, 
watching  at  a  window  the  poorer  invalids  at  the  Spa,  as 
they  dragged  themselves  through  the  rain  to  the  water,  I 
lost  patience,  and  sallied  out,  beplaided  and  umbrellaed, 
to  see  from  the  top  of  Knock  Farril  how  the  country 
looked  in  a  fog.  At  first,  however,  I  saw  much  fog,  biit 
little  country;  but  as  the  day  wore  on,  the  flat  mist-ceiling 
rose  together,  till  it  rested  on  but  the  distant  hills,  and 
the  more  prominent  features  of  the  landscape  began  to 
stand  out  amid  the  more  general  gray,  like  the  stronger 
lines  and  masses  in  a  half-finished  drawing,  boldly  dashed 
off  in  the  neutral  tint  of  the  artist.  The  portions  of  the 
prospect  generically  distinct  are,  notwithstanding  its  great 
extent  and  variety,  but  few ;  and  the  partial  veil  of  haze, 


BAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  409 

by  glazing  down  its  distracting  multiplicity  of  minor 
points,  served  to  bring  them  out  all  the  more  distinctly. 
There  is,  first  stretching  far  in  a  southern  and  eastern 
direction  along  the  landscape,  the  rectilinear  ridge  of  the 
Black  Isle,  —  not  quite  the  sort  of  line  a  painter  would  in- 
troduce into  a  composition,  but  true  to  geologic  character. 
More  in  the  foreground,  in  the  same  direction,  there 
spreads  a  troubled  cockling  sea  of  the  Great  Conglomerate. 
Turning  to  the  north  and  west,  the  deep  valley  of  Strath- 
peflfer,  with  its  expanse  of  rich  level  fields,  and  in  the 
midst  its  old  baronial  castle,  surrounded  by  coeval  trees 
of  vast  bulk,  lies  so  immediately  at  the  foot  of  the  emi- 
nence, that  I  could  hear  in  the  calm  the  rush  of  the  little 
stream,  swollen  to  thrice  its  usual  bulk  by  the  rains  of  the 
night.  Beyond  rose  the  thick-set  Ben-Wevis,  —  a  true 
gneiss  mountain,  with  breadth  enough  of  shoulders,  and 
amplitude  enough  of  base,  to  serve  a  mountain  thrice  as 
tall,  but  which,  like  all  its  cogeners  of  this  ancient  forma- 
tion, was  arrested  in  its  second  stage  of  growth,  so  that 
many  of  the  slimmer  granitic  and  porphyritic  hills  of  the 
country  look  down  upon  it,  as  Agamemnon,  according  to 
Homer,  looked  down  upon  Ulysses. 

"  Broad  is  his  breast,  his  shoulders  larger  spread, 
Though  great  Atrides  overtops  his  head." 

All  around,  as  if  topling,  wave-like,  over  the  outer  edges 
of  the  comparatively  flat  area  of  Palasozoic  rock  which 
composes  the  middle  ground  of  the  landscape,  rose  a  mul- 
titude of  primary  hill-peaks,  barely  discernible  in  the  haze; 
while  the  long  withdrawing  Dingwall  Frith,  stretching  on 
towards  the  open  sea  for  full  twenty  miles,  and  flanked 
on  either  side  by  ridges  of  sandstone,  but  guarded  at  the 
opening  by  two  squat  granitic  columns,  completed  the 

35 


410  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

prospect,  by  adding  to  its  last  great  feature.  All  was 
gloomy  and  chill ;  and  as  I  turned  me  down  the  descent, 
the  thick  wetting  drizzle  again  came  on ;  and  the  mist- 
wreaths,  after  creeping  upwards  along  the  hill-side,  began 
again  to  creep  down.  When  I  had  first  visited  the  val- 
ley, more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  before,  it  was  on  a 
hot  breathless  day  of  early  summer,  in  which,  though  the 
trees  in  fresh  leaf  seemed  drooping  in  the  sunshine,  and 
the  succulent  luxuriance  of  the  fields  lay  aslant,  half-pros- 
trated by  the  fierce  heat,  the  rich  blue  of  Ben-Wevis,  far 
above,  was  thickly  streaked  with  snow,  on  which  it  was 
luxury  even  to  look.  It  gave  one  iced  fancies,  where- 
withal to  slake,  amid  the  bright  glow  of  summer,  the 
thirst  in  the  mind.  The  recollection  came  strongly  upon 
me,  as  the  fog  from  the  hill-top  closed  dark  behind,  like 
that  sung  by  the  old  blind  Englishman,  which 

"  O'er  the  marish  glides, 
And  gathers  ground  fast  at  the  lab'rer's  heel, 
Homeward  returning." 

But  the  contrast  had  nothing  sad  in  it ;  and  it  was  pleas- 
ant to  feel  that  it  had  not.  I  had  resigned  many  a  base- 
less hope  and  many  an  idle  desire  since  I  had  spent  a 
vacant  day  amid  the  sunshine,  now  gazing  on  the  bi-oad 
placid  features  of  the  snow-streaked  mountain ;  and  now 
sauntering  under  the  tall  ancient  woods,  or  along  the 
heath-covered  slopes  of  the  valley;  but  in  relation  to 
never-tiring,  inexhaustible  nature,  the  heart  was  no  fresher 
at  that  time  than  it  was  now.  I  had  grown  no  older  in 
my  feelings  or  in  my  capacity  of  enjoyment;  and  what 
then  was  there  to  regret? 

I  rode  down  the  Strath  in  an  omnibus  which  plies  be- 
tween the  Spa  and  Dingwall,  and  then  walked  on  to  the 
village  of  Evanton,  which  I  readied  about  an  hour  after 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  411 

nightfall,  somewhat  in  the  circumstances  of  the  "  damp 
stranger,"  who  gave  Bean  Brummel  the  cold.  There 
were,  however,  no  Bean  Brummels  in  the  quiet  village  inn 
in  which  I  passed  the  night,  and  so  the  effects  of  the  damp 
were  wholly  confined  to  myself.  I  was  soundly  pummelled 
during  the  night  by  a  frightful  female,  who  first  assumed 
the  appearance  of  the  miserable  pauper  woman  whom  I 
had  seen  beside  the  Auldgrande,  and  then  became  the 
Lady  of  Balconie ;  and,  though  sufficiently  indignant,  and 
much  inclined  to  resist,  I  could  stir  neither  hand  nor  foot, 
but  lay  passively  on  my  back,  jambed  fast  behind  the  huge 
gneiss  boulder  and  the  edge  of  the  gulf.  And  yet,  by  a 
strange  duality  of  perception,  I  was  conscious  all  the  while 
that,  having  got  wet  on  the  previous  day,  I  was  now  suf- 
fering from  an  attack  of  nightmare  :  and  held  that  it  would 
be  no  very  serious  matter  even  should  the  lady  tumble  me 
into  the  gulf,  seeing  that  all  would  be  well  again  when  I 
aAvoke  in  the  morning.  Dreams  of  this  character,  in  which 
consciousness  bears  reference  at  once  to  the  fictitious  events 
of  the  vision  and  the  real  circumstances  of  the  sleeper, 
must  occupy,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  very  little  time, — 
single  moments,  mayhap,  poised  midway  between  the 
sleeping  and  waking  state.  Next  day  (Sunday)  I  attended 
the  Free  Church  in  the  parish,  where  I  found  a  numerous 
and  attentive  congregation,  —  descendants,  in  large  part, 
of  the  old  devout  Munroes  of  Ferindonald,  —  and  heard  a 
good  solid  discourse.  And  on  the  following  morning  I 
crossed  the  sea  at  what  is  known  as  the  Fowlis  Ferry,  to 
explore,  on  my  homeward  route,  the  rocks  laid  bare  along 
the  shore  in  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Frith. 

I  found  but  little  by  the  way :  black  patches  of  Jbitumen 
in  the  sandstone  of  one  of  the  beds,  with  a  bed  of  stratified 
clay,  inclosing  nodules,  in  which,  however,  I  succeeded  in 
detecting  nothing  organic;  and  a  few  fragments  of  clay- 


412  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

slate  locked  up  in  the  Red  Sandstone,  sharp  and  unworn  at 
their  edges,  as  if  derived  from  no  great  distance,  though 
there  Le  now  no  clay-slate  in  the  eastern  half  of  Ross ;  but 
though  the  rocks  here  belong  evidently  to  the  ichthyolitic 
member  of  the  Old  Red,  not  a  single  fish,  not  a  "  nibble  " 
even,  repaid  the  patient  search  of  half  a  day.  I,  however, 
passed  some  time  agreeably  enough  among  the  ruins  of 
Craighouse.  When  I  had  last  seen,  many  years  before,  this 
old  castle,*  the  upper  stories  were  accessible  ;  but  they  were 
now  no  longer  so.  Time,  and  the  little  herdboys  who  occa- 
sionally shelter  in  its  vaults,  had  been  busy  in  the  interval ; 
and,  by  breaking  off  a  few  projecting  corners  by  which  the 
climber  had  held,  and  by  effacing  a  few  notches  into  which 
he  had  thrust  his  toe-points,  they  had  rendered  what  had 
been  merely  difficult  impracticable.  I  remarked  that  the 
huge  kitchen  chimney  of  the  building,  —  a  deep  hollow 
recess  which  stretches  across  the  entire  gable,  and  in  which, 
it  is  said,  two  thrashers  once  plied  the  flail  for  a  whole 
winter,  —  bore  less  of  the  stain  of  recent  smoke  than  it 
used  to  exhibit  twenty  years  before;  and  inferred  that 
there  would  be  fewer  wraith-lights  seen  from  the  castle  at 
nights  than  in  those  days  of  evil  spirits  and  illicit  stills, 
when  the  cottars  in  the  neighborhood  sent  more  smuggled 
whiskey  to  market  than  any  equal  number  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  almost  any  other  district  in  the  north.  It  has  been 
long  alleged  that  there  existed  a  close  connection  between 
the  more  ghostly  spirits  of  the  country  and  its  distilled 
ones.  "  How  do  you  account,"  said  a  north  country  min- 
ister of  the  last  age  (the  late  Rev.  Mr.  M'Bean  of  Alves) 
to  a  sagacious  old  elder  of  his  Session,  "for  the  almost 
total  disappearance  of  the  ghosts  and  fairies  that  used  to  be 
so  common  in  your  young  days  ?  "  "  Tak  my  word  for 't, 
minister,"  replied  the  shrewd  old  man,  "  it 's  a'  owing  to 

*  See  "  My  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,"  chap  xi. 


EAMBLES   OF    A   GEOLOGIST.  413 

.the  tea ;  when  the  tea  cam  in,  the  ghaists  an'  fairies  gaed 
out.  Weel  do  I  mind  when  at  a'  our  neeborly  meetings, 
—  bridals,  christenings,  lyke-wakes,  an'  the  like,  —  we 
entertained  ane  anither  wi'  rich  nappy  ale ;  an'  whan  the 
verra  dowiest  o'  us  used  to  get  warm  i'  the  face,  an'  a  little 
confused  in  the  head,  an'  weel  fit  to  see  amaist  onything 
whan  on  the  muirs  on  our  way  harne.  But  the  tea  has  put 
out  the  nappy;  an'  I  have  remarked,  that  by  losing  the 
nappy  we  lost  baith  ghaists  an'  fairies." 

Quitting  the  ruin,  I  walked  on  along  the  shore,  tracing 
the  sandstone  as  I  went,  as  it  rises  from  lower  to  higher 
beds ;  and  where  it  ceases  to  crop  out  at  the  surface,  and 
gravel  and  the  red  boulder-clays  take  the  place  of  rock,  I 
struck  up  the  hill,  and,  traversing  the  parishes  of  Resolis 
and  Cromarty,  got  home  early  in  the  evening.  I  had  seen 
and  done  scarcely  half  what  I  had  intended  seeing  or 
doing :  alas,  that  in  reference  to  every  walk  which  I 
have  yet  attempted  to  tread,  this  special  statement  should 
be  so  invariably  true  to  fact !  —  alas,  that  all  my  full  pur- 
poses, should  be  coupled  with  but  half  realizations !  But 
I  had  at  least  the  satisfaction,  that  though  I  had  accom- 
plished little,  I  had  enjoyed  much ;  and  it  is  something, 
though  not  all,  nor  nearly  all,  that,  since  time  is  passing, 
it  should  pass  happily.  In  my  next  chapter  I  shall  enter 
on  my  tour  to  Orkney.  It  dates  one  year  earlier  (1846) 
than  the  tour  with  which  I  have  already  occupied  so  many 
chapters ;  but  I  have  thus  inverted  the  order  of  time,  by 
placing  it  last,  that  I  may  be  able  so  to  preserve  the  order 
of  space  as  to  render  the  tract  travelled  over  in  my  narra- 
tive continuous  from  Edinburgh  to  the  northern  extremity 
of  Pomona. 

35* 


CHAPTER    X. 


Recovered  Health  —  Journey  to  the  Orkneys  — Aboard  the  Steamer  at  Wick 

—  Mr.  Bremner  —  Masonry  of  the  Harbor  of  Wick  —  The  greatest  Blunders 
result  from  good  Rules  misapplied  —  Mr.  Bremner's  Theory  about  sea-washed 
Masonry  —  Singular  Fracture  of  the  Rock  near  Wick  —  The  Author's  mode 
of  accounting  for  it  —  "  Simple  but  not  obvious  "  'Thinking  —  Mr.  Bremner's 
mode  of    making  stone  Erections  under  Water  —  His  exploits  in  raising 
foundered  Vessels  —  Aspect  of  the  Orkneys  —  The  ungracious  Schoolmaster 

—  In  the  Frith  of  Kirkwall  —  Cathedral  of  St    Magnus  —  Appearance  of 
Kirkwall  —  Its  "  perished  suppers"  — Its  ancient  Palaces  —  Blunder  of  the 
Scotch  Aristocracy  —  The  patronate  Wedge  —  Breaking  Ground  in  Orkney — 
Minute  gregarious  Coccosteus  —  True  Position  of  the  Coccosteus'  Eyes  — 
Ruins  of  one  of  Cromwell's  Forts  —  Antiquities  of  Orkney  —  The  Cathedral  — 
Its   Sculptures  —  The    Mysterious    Cell  —  Prospect   from    the  Tower  —  Its 
Chimes  —  Ruins  of  Castle  Patrick. 


A  TWELVEMOXTH  had  gone  by  since  a  lingering  indispo- 
sition, which  bore  heavily  on  the  springs  of  life,  compelled 
me  to  postpone  a  long-projected  journey  to  the  Orkneys, 
and  led  me  to  visit,  instead,  rich  level  England,  with  its 
well-kept  roads  and  smooth  railways,  along  which  the 
enfeebled  invalid  can  travel  far  without  fatigue.  I  had 
now  got  greatly  stronger;  and,  if  not  quite  up  to  my  old 
thirty  miles  per  day,  nor  altogether  so  bold  a  cragsman  as 
I  had  been  only  a  few  years  before,  I  was  at  least  vigorous 
enough  to  enjoy  a  middling  long  walk,  and  to  breast  a 
tolerably  steep  hill.  And  so  I  resolved  on  at  least  glancing 
over,  if  not  exploring,  the  fossiliferous  deposits  of  the  Ork- 
neys, trusting  that  an  eye  someAvhat  practised  in  the  for- 
mations mainly  developed  in  these  islands  might  enable 
me  to  make  some  amends  for  seeing  comparatively  little, 
by  seeing  well.  I  took  coach  at  Invergordon  for  "SVick 
early  in  the  morning  of  Friday ;  and,  after  a  weary  ride,  in 


RAMBLES    OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  415 

a  bleak  gusty  day,  that  sent  the  dust  of  the  road  whirling 
about  the  ears  of  the  sorely-tossed  "  outsides,"  with  whom 
I  had  taken  my  chance,  I  alighted  in  Wick,  at  the  inn- 
door,  a  little  after  six  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  follow- 
ing morning  was  wet  and  dreary;  and  a  tumbling  sea, 
raised  by  the  wind  of  the  previous  day  and  night,  came 
rolling  into  the  bay ;  but  the  waves  bore  with  them  no 
steamer;  and  when,  some  five  hours  after  the  expected 
time,  she  also  came  rolling  in,  her  darkened  and  weather- 
beaten  sides  and  rigging  gave  evidence  that  her  passage 
from  the  south  had  been  no  holiday  trip.  Impatient,  how- 
ever, of  looking  out  upon  the  sea  for  hours,  from  under 
dripping  eaves,  and  through  the  dimmed  panes  of  stream- 
ing windows,  I  got  aboard  with  about  half-a-dozen  other 
passengers ;  and  while  the  Wick  goods  were  in  the  course 
of  being  transferred  to  two  large  boats  alongside,  we  lay 
tossing  in  the  open  bay.  The  work  of  raising  box  and 
package  was  superintended  by  a  tall  elderly  gentleman 
from  the  shore,  peculiarly  Scotch  in  his  appearance,  —  the 
steam  company's  agent  for  this  part  of  the  country. 

"  That,"  said  an  acquaintance,  pointing  to  the  agent,  "  is 
a  very  extraordinary  man,  — •  in  his  own  special  walk,  one 
of  the  most  original-minded,  and  at  the  same  time  most 
thoroughly  practical,  you  perhaps  ever  saw.  That  is  Mr. 
Bremner  of  Wick,  known  now  all  over  Britain  for  his  suc- 
cess in  raising  foundered  vessels,  when  every  one  else  gives 
them  up.  In  the  lifting  of  vast  weights,  or  the  overcoming 
the  vis  inertic/B  of  the  hugest  bodies,  nothing  ever  baffles 
Mr.  Bremner.  But  come,  I  must  introduce  you  to  him. 
He  takes  an  interest  in  your  peculiar  science,  and  is  familiar 
with  your  geological  writings." 

I  was  accordingly  introduced  to  Mr.  Bremner,  and  passed 
in  his  company  the  half-hour  which  we  spent  in  the  bay,  in 
a  way  that  made  me  wish  the  time  doubled.  I  had  been 


416  RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST- 

struck  by  the  peculiar  style,  of  masonry  employed  in  the 
harbor  of  Wick,  and  by  its  rock-like  strength.  The  gray 
ponderous  stones  of  the  flagstone  series  of  which  it  is  built, 
instead  of  being  placed  on  their  flatter  beds,  like  common 
ashlar  in  a  building,  or  horizontal  strata  in  a  quarry,  are 
raised  on  end,  like  staves  in  a  pail  or  ban-el,  so  that  at  some 
little  distance  the  work  looks  as  if  formed  of  upright  piles 
or  beams  jambed  fast  together.  I  had  learned  that  Mr. 
Bremner  had  been  the  builder,  and  adverted  to  the  pecu- 
liarity of  his  style  of  building.  "  You  have  given  a  vertical 
tilt  to  your  strata,"  I  said :  "  most  men  would  have  pre- 
ferred the  horizontal  position.  It  used  to  be  regarded  as 
one  of  the  standing  rules  of  my  old  profession,  that  the 
c  broad  bed  of  a  stone '  is  the  best,  and  should  be  always 
laid  '  below.' "  "  A  good  rule  for  the  land,"  replied  Mr. 
Bremner,  "  but  no  good  rule  for  the  sea.  The  greatest 
blunders  are  almost  always  perpetrated  through  the  mis- 
application of  good  rules.  On  a  coast  like  ours,  where 
boulders  of  a  ton  weight  are  rolled  about  with  every  storm 
like  pebbles,  these  stones,  if  placed  on  what  a  workman 
would  term  their  best  beds,  would  be  scattered  along  the 
shore  like  sea-wrack,  by  the  gales  of  a  single  winter.  In 
setting  aside  the  prejudice,"  continued  Mr. Bremner,  "that 
what  is  indisputably  the  best  bed  for  a  stone  on  dry  land 
is  also  the  best  bed  in  the  water  on  an  exposed  coast,  I 
reasoned  thus  :  —  The  surf  that  dashes  along  the  beach  in 
times  of  tempest,  and  that  forms  the  enemy  with  which  I 
have  to  contend,  is  not  simply  water,  with  an  onward  im- 
petus communicated  to  it  by  the  wind  and  tide,  and  a 
reiictive  impetus  in  the  opposite  direction,  —  the  effect  of 
the  backward  rebound,  and  of  its  own  weight,  when  raised 
by  these  propelling  forces  above  its  average  level  of  surface. 
True,  it  is  all  this ;  but  it  is  also  something  more.  As  its 
white  breadth  of  foam  indicates,  it  is  a  subtile  mixture  of 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  417 

water  and  air,  with  .1  powerful  upward  action,  —  a  conse- 
quence of  the  air  struggling  to  effect  its  escape ;  and  this 
upward  action  must  be  taken  into  account  in  our  calcula- 
tions, as  certainly  as  the  other  and  more  generally  recog- 
nized actions.  In  striking  against  a  piece  of  building,  this 
subtile  mixture  dashes  through  the  interstices  into  the 
interior  of  the  masonry,  and,  filling  up  all  its  cavities,  has 
by  its  upward  action,  a  tendency  to  set  the  work  afloat. 
And  the  broader  the  beds  of  the  stones,  of  course  the  more 
extensive  are  the  surfaces  which  it  has  to  act  upon.  One 
of  these  flat  flags,  ten  feet  by  four,  and  a  foot  in  thickness, 
would  present  to  this  upheaving  force,  if  placed  on  end,  a 
superficies  of  but  four  square  feet ;  whereas,  if  placed  on 
its  broader  base,  it  would  present  to  it  a  superficies  of  forty 
square  feet.  Obviously,  then,  with  regard  to  this  aerial 
upheaving  force,  that  acts  upon  the  masonry  in  a  direction 
in  which  no  precautions  are  usually  adopted  to  bind  it  fast, 
—  for  the  existence  of  the  force  itself  is  not  taken  into 
account,  —  the  greater  bed  of  the  stone  must  be  just  ten 
times  over  a  worse  bed  than  its  lesser  one ;  and  on  a  tem- 
pestuous foam-encircled  coast  such  as  ours,  this  aerial 
upheaving  force  is  in  reality,  though  the  builder  may  not 
know  it,  one  of  the  most  formidable  forces  with  which  he 
had  to  deal.  And  so,  on  these  principles,  I  ventured  to 
set  my  stones  on  end,  —  on  what  was  deemed  their  worst, 
not  their  best  beds,  —  wedging  them  all  fast  together,  like 
staves  in  an  anker ;  and  there,  to  the  scandal  of  all  the  old 
rules,  are  they  fast  wedged  still,  firm  as  a  rock."  It  was 
no  ordinary  man  that  could  have  originated  such  reason- 
ings on  such  a  subject,  or  that  could  have  thrown  himself 
so  boldly,  and  to  such  practical  effect,  on  the  conclusions 
to  which  they  led. 

Mr.  Bremner  adverted,  in  the  course  of  our  conversa- 
tion, to  a  singular  appearance  among  the  rocks  a  little  to 


418  It  AMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

the  east  and  south  of  the  town  of  Wick,  that  had  not,  he 
said,  attracted  the  notice  it  deserved.  The  solid  rock  had 
been  fractured  by  some  tremendous  blow,  dealt  to  it  exter- 
nally at  a  considerable  height  over  the  sea-level,  and  its 
detached  masses  scattered  about  like  the  stones  of  an  ill- 
built  harbor  broken  up  by  a  storm.  The  force,  whatever 
its  nature,  had  been  enormously  great.  Blocks  of  some 
thirty  or  forty  tons  weight  had  been  torn  from  out  the 
solid  strata,  and  piled  up  in  ruinous  heaps,  as  if  the  com- 
pact precipice  had  been  a  piece  of  loose  brickwork,  or  had 
been  driven  into  each  other,  as  if,  instead  *of  being  com- 
posed of  perhaps  the  hardest  and  toughest  sedimentary 
rock  in  the  country,  they  had  been  formed  of  sun-dried 
clay.  "  I  brought,"  continued  Mr.  Bremner,  "  one  of  your 
itinerant  geological  lecturers  to  the  spot,  to  get  his  opin- 
ion ;  but  he  could  say  nothing  about  the  appearance :  it 
was  not  in  his  books."  "  I  suspect,"  I  replied,  "  the  phe- 
nomenon lies  quite  as  much  within  your  own  province  as 
within  that  of  the  geological  lecturer.  It  is  in  all  proba- 
bility an  illustration,  on  a  large  scale,  of  those  floating 
forces  with  which  you  operate  on  your  foundered  vessels, 
joined  to  the  forces,  laterally  exerted,  by  which  you  drag 
them  towards  the  shore.  "When  the  sea  stood  higher,  or 
the  land  lower,  in  the  eras  of  .the  raised  beaches,  along 
what  is  now  Caithness,  the  abrupt  mural  precipices  by 
which  your  coast  here  is  skirted  must  have  secured  a  very 
considerable  depth  of  water  up  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
land;  —  your  coast-line  must  have  resembled  the  side  of  a 
mole  or  wharf:  and  in  that  glacial  period  to  which  the 
thick  deposit  of  boulder-clay  immediately  over  your  har- 
bor yonder  belongs,  icebergs  of  very  considerable  size 
must  not  unfrequently  have  brushed  the  brows  of  your 
precipices.  An  iceberg  from  eighty  to  a  hundred  feet  in 
thickness,  and  perhaps  half  a  square  mile  in  area,  could 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  419 

not,  in  this  old  state  of  things,  have  come  in  contact  with 
these  cliffs  without  first  catching  the  ground  outside ;  and 
such  an  iceberg,  propelled  by  a  fierce  storm  from  the 
north-east,  could  not  fail  to  lend  the  cliff  with  which  it 
came  in  collision  a  tremendous  blow.  You  will  find  that 
your  shattered  precipice  marks,  in  all  probability,  the 
scene  of  a  collision  of  this  character:  some  hard-headed 
iceberg  must  have  set  itself  to  run  down  the  land,  and  got 
wrecked  upon  it  for  its  pains."  My  theory,  though  made 
somewhat  in  the  dark,  —  for  I  had  no  opportunity  of  see- 
ing the  broken  precipice  until  after  my  return  from  Ork- 
ney, —  seemed  to  satisfy  Mr.  Bremner ;  nor,  on  a  careful 
survey  of  the  phenomenon,  the  solution  of  which  it 
attempted,  did  I  find  occasion  to  modify  or  give  it  up. 

With  just  knowledge  enough  of  Mr.  Bremner's  peculiar 
province  to  appreciate  his  views,  I  was  much  impressed  by 
their  broad  and  practical  simplicity ;  and  bethought  me,  as 
Ave  conversed,  that  the  character  of  the  thinking,  which, 
according  to  Addison,  forms  the  staple  of  all  writings  of 
genius,  and  which  he  defines  as  "  simple  but  not  obvious," 
is  a  character  which  equally  applies  to  all  good  thinking, 
whatever  its  special  department.  Power  rarely  resides  in 
ingenious  complexities :  it  seems  to  eschew  in  every  walk 
the  elaborately  attenuated  and  razor-edged  mode  of  think- 
ing, —  the  thinking  akin  to  that  of  the  old  metaphysical 
poets,  —  and  to  select  the  broad  and  massive  style.  Her- 
cules, in  all  the  representations  of  him  which  I  have  yet 
seen,  is  the  broad  Hercules.  I  was  greatly  struck  by  some 
of  Mr.  Bremner's  views  on  deep-sea  founding.  He  showed 
me  how,  by  a  series  of  simple,  but  certainly  not  obvious 
contrivances,  which  had  a  strong  air  of  practicability  about 
them,  he  could  lay  down  his  erection,  course  by  course,  in- 
s_hore,  in  a  floating  caisson  of  peculiar  construction,  begin- 
ning a  little  beyond  the  low-ebb  line,  and  warping  out  his 


420  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

work  piecemeal,  as  it  sank,  till  it  had  reached  its  proper 
place,  in,  if  necessaiy,  from  ten  to  twelve  fathoms  water, 
where,  on  a  bottom  previously  prepared  for  it  by  the  div- 
ing-bell, he  had  means  to  make  it  take  the  ground  exactly 
at  the  required  line.  The  difficulty  and  vast  expense  of 
building  altogether  by  the  bell  would  be  obviated,  he  said, 
by  the  contrivance,  and  a  solidity  given  to  the  work  other- 
wise impossible  in  the  cii-cumstances :  the  stones  could  be 
laid  in  his  floating  caisson  with  a  care  as  deliberate  as  on 
the  land.  Some  of  the  anecdotes  which  he  communicated 
to  me  on  this  occasion,  connected  Avith  his  numerous 
achievements  in  weighing  up  foundered  vessels,  or  in  float- 
ing off  wrecked  or  stranded  ones,  were  of  singular  interest; 
and  I  regretted  that  they  should  not  be  recorded  in  an 
autobiographical  memoir.  Not  a  few  of  them  were  humor- 
ously told,  and  curiously  illustrative  of  that  general  ignor- 
ance regarding  the  "  strength  of  materials "  in  which  the 
scientific  world  has  been  too  strangely  suffered  to  lie,  in 
this  the  world's  most  mechanical  age ;  so  that  what  ought 
to  be  questions  of  strict  calculation  are  subjected  to  the 
guessings  of  a  mere  common  sense,  far  from  adequate,  in 
many  cases,  to  their  proper  resolution.  "  I  once  raised  a 
vessel,"  said  Mr.  Bremner,  —  "a  large  collier,  chock-full  of 
coal,  —  which  an  English  projector  had  actually  engaged 
to  raise  with  huge  bags  of  India  rubber,  inflated  with  air. 
But  the  bags,  of  course  taxed  far  beyond  their  strength, 
collapsed  or  burst ;  and  so,  when  I  succeeded  in  bringing 
the  vessel  up,  through  the  employment  of  more  adequate 
means,  I  got  not  only  ship  and  cargo,  but  also  a  great  deal 
of  good  India  rubber  to  boot."  Only  a  few  months  after  I 
enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  this  interview  with  the  Brindley 
of  Scotland,  he  was  called  south,  to  the  achievement  of  his 
greatest  feat  in  at  least  one  special  department,  —  a  feat 
generally  recognized  and  appreciated  as  the  most  hercu- 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  421 

lean  of  its  kind  ever  performed,  —  the  raising  and  warping 
off  of  the  Great  Britain  steamer  from  her  perilous  bed  in 
the  sand  of  an  exposed  bay  on  the  coast  of  Ireland.  I  was 
conscious  of  a  feeling  of  sadness  as,  in  parting  with  Mr. 
Bremner,  I  reflected,  that  a  man  so  singularly  gifted  should 
have  been  suffered  to  reach  a  period  of  life  very  considera- 
bly advanced,  in  employments  little  suited  to  exert  his 
extraordinary  faculties,  and  which  persons  of  the  ordinary 
type  could  have  performed  as  well.  Napoleon,  —  himself 
possessed  of  great  genius,  —  could  have  estimated  more 
adequately  than  our  British  rulers  the  value  of  such  a  man. 
Had  Mr.  Bremner  been  born  a  Frenchman,  he  would  not 
now  be  the  mere  agent  of  a  steam  company,  in  a  third-rate 
seaport  town. 

The  rain  had  ceased,  but  the  evening  was  gloomy  and 
chill ;  and  the  Orcades,  which,  on  clearing  the  Caithness 
coast,  came  as  fully  in  view  as  the  haze  permitted,  were 
enveloped  in  an  undress  of  cloud  and  spray,  that  showed 
off  their  flat  low  features  to  no  advantage  at  all.  The 
bold,  picturesque  Hebride's  look  well  in  any  weather ;  but 
the  level  Orkney  Islands,  impressed  everywhere,  on  at 
least  their  eastern  coasts,  by  the  comparatively  tame  char- 
acter borne  by  the  Old  Red  flagstones,  when  undisturbed  by 
trap  or  the  primary  rocks,  demand  the  full-dress  auxiliaries 
of  bright  sun  and  clear  sky,  to  render  their  charms  patent. 
Then,  however,  in  their  sleek  coats  of  emerald  and  purple, 
and  surrounded  by  their  blue  sparkling  sounds  and  seas, 
with  here  a  long  dark  wall  of  rock,  that  casts  its  shadow 
over  the  breaking  waves,  and  there  a  light  fringe  of  sand 
and  broken  shells,  they  are,  as  I  afterwards  ascertained, 
not  without  their  genuine  beauties.  But  had  they  shared 
in  the  history  of  the  neighboring  Shetland  group,  that, 
according  to  some  of  the  older  historians,  were  suffered  to 
lie  uninhabited  for  centuries  after  their  first  discovery,  I 

30 


422  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

would  rather  have  been  disposed  to  marvel  this  evening, 
not  that  they  had  been  unappropriated  so  long,  but  that 
they  had  been  appropriated  at  all.  The  late  member  for 
Orkney,  not  yet  unseated  by  his  Shetland  opponent,  was 
one  of  the  passengers  in  the  steamboat;  and,  with  an 
elderly  man,  an  ambitious  schoolmaster,  strongly  marked 
by  the  peculiarities  of  the  genuine  dominie,  who  had 
introduced  himself  to  him  as  a  brother  voyager,  he  Avas 
pacing  the  quarter-deck,  evidently  doing  his  best  to  exert, 
under  an  unintermittent  hot-water  douche  of  queries,  the 
patient  courtesy  of  a  Member  of  Parliament  on  a  visit  to 
his  constituency.  At  length,  however,  the  troubler  quitted 
him,  and  took  his  stand  immediately  beside  me ;  and,  too 
sanguinely  concluding  that  I  might  take  the  same  kind  of 
liberty  with  the  schoolmaster  that  the  schoolmaster  had 
taken  with  the  Member,  I  addressed  to  him  a  simple 
query  in  turn.  But  I  had  mistaken  my  man  ;  the  school- 
master permitted  to  unknown  passengers  in  humble  russet 
no  such  sort  of  familiarities  as  those  permitted  by  the 
Member;  and  so  I  met  with  a  prompt  rebuff,  that  at  once 
set  me  down.  I  was  evidently  a  big,  forward  lad,  who 
had  taken  a  liberty  with  the  master.  It  is,  I  suspect, 
scarce  possible  for  a  man,  unless  naturally  very  superior,  to 
live  among  boys  for  some  twenty  or  thirty  years,  exerting 
over  them  all  the  while  a  despotic  authority,  without  con- 
tracting those  peculiarities  of  character  which  the  master- 
spirits,—  our  Scots,  Lambs,  and  Goldsmiths,  —  have  em- 
balmed with  such  exquisite  truth  in  our  literature,  and 
which  have  hitherto  militated  against  the  practical  realiza- 
tion of  those  unexceptionable  abstractions  in  behalf  of  the 
status  and  standing  of  the  teacher  of  youth  which  have 
been  originated  by  men  less  in  the  habit  of  looking  about 
them  than  the  poets.  It  is  worth  while  remarking  how 
invariably  the  strong  common  sense  of  the  Scotch  people 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  423 

has  run  every  scheme  under  water  that,  confounding  the 
character  of  the  "  village  schoolmaster "  with  that  of  the 
"  village  clergyman,"  would  demand  from  the  schoolmas- 
ter the  clergyman's  work. 

We  crossed  the  opening  of  the  Pentland  Frith,  Avith  its 
Avhite  surges  and  dark  boiling  eddies,  and  saw  its  twin  light- 
houses rising  tall  and  ghostly  amid  the  fog  on  our  lee.  We 
then  skirted  the  shores  of  South  Ronaldshay,  of  Burra,  of 
Copinshay,  and  of  Deerness ;  and,  after  doubling  Moul 
Head,  and  threading  the  sound  which  separates  Shapinshay 
from  the  Mainland,  we  entered  the  Frith  of  Kirkwall,  and 
caught,  amid  the  uncertain  light  of  the  closing  evening,  our 
earliest  glimpse  of  the  ancient  Cathedral  of  St.  Magnus.  It 
seems  at  first  sight  as  if  standing  solitary,  a  huge  hermit-like 
erection,  at  the  bottom  of  a  low  bay, — for  its  humbler  com- 
panions do  not  make  themselves  visible  until  we  have  en- 
tered the  harbor  by  a  mile  or  two  more,  when  we  begin  to 
find  that  it  occupies,  not  an  uninhabited  tract  of  shore,  but 
the  middle  of  a  gray  straggling  town,  nearly  a  mile  in 
length.  We  had  just  light  enough  to  show  us,  on  landing, 
that  the  main  thoroughfare  of  the  place,  very  narrow  and 
very  crooked,  had  been  laid  out,  ere  the  country  beyond 
had  got  highways,  or  the  proprietors  carts  and  carriages, 
with  an  exclusive  eye  to  the  necessities  of  the  foot-passen- 
ger, —  that  many  of  the  older  houses  presented,  as  is  com- 
mon in  our  northern  towns,  their  gables  to  the  street,  and 
had  narrow  slips  of  closes  running  down  along  their  fronts, 
—  and  that  as  we  receded  from  the  harbor,  a  goodly  portion 
of  their  number  bore  about  them  an  air  of  respectability, 
long  maintained,  but  now  apparently  touched  by  decay. 
I  saw,  in  advance  of  one  of  the  buildings,  several  vigorous- 
looking  planes,  about  forty  feet  in  height,  which,  fenced  by 
tall  houses  in  front  and  rear,  and  flanked  by  the  tortuosi- 
ties of  the  street,  had  apparently  forgotten  that  they  were 


424  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

in  Orkney,  and  had  grown  quite  as  well  as  the  planes  of 
public  thoroughfares  grow  elsewhere.  After  an  abortive 
attempt  or  two  made  in  other  quarters,  I  was  successful  in 
procuring  lodgings  for  a  few  days  in  the  house  of  a  respect- 
able widow  lady  of  the  place,  where  I  found  comfort  and 
quiet  on  very  moderate  terms.  The  cast  of  faded  gentility 
which  attached  to  so  many  of  the  older  houses  of  Kirkwall, 
—  remnants  of  a  time  when  the  wealthier  TJdallers  of  the 
Orkneys  used  to  repair  to  their  capital  at  the  close  of 
autumn,  to  while  away  in  each  other's  society  their  dreary 
winters,  —  reminded  me  of  the  poet  Malcolm's  "  Sketch  of 
the  Borough,"  —  a  portrait  for  which  Kirkwall  is  known 
to  have  sat,  —  and  of  the  great  revolution  effected  in  its 
evening  parties,  when  "  tea  and  turn-out "  yielded  its  place 
to  "  tea  and  turn-in."  But  the  churchyard  of  the  place, 
which  I  had  seen,  as  I  passed  along,  glimmering  with  all 
its  tombstones  in  the  uncertain  light,  was  all  that  remained 
to  represent  those  "  great  men  of  the  burgh,"  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  poet,  used  to  "  pop  in  on  its  card  and  dancing 
assemblies,  about  the  eleventh  hour,  resplendent  in  top- 
boots  and  scarlet  vests,"  or  of  its  "  suppression-of-vice  sis- 
terhood of  moral  old  maids,"  who  kept  all  their  neigh- 
bors right  by  the  terror  of  their  tongues.  I  was  some- 
what in  a  mood,  after  my  chill  and  hungry  voyage,  to 
recall  with  a  hankering  of  regret  the  vision  of  its  departed 
suppers,  so  luxuriously  described  in  the  "  Sketch,"  —  sup- 
pers at  which  "  large  rounds  of  boiled  beef  smothered  in 
cabbage,  smoked  geese,  mutton  hams,  roasts  of  pork,  and 
dishes  of  dog-fish  and  of  Welsh  rabbits  melted  in  their 
own  fat,  were  diluted  by  copious  draughts  of  strong  home- 
brewed ale,  and  etherealized  by  gigantic  bowls  of  rum 
punch."  But  the  past,  which  is  not  ours,  who,  alas,  can 
recall!  And,  after  discussing  a  juicy  steak  and  a  modest 


KAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  425 

cup  of  tea,  I  found  I  could  regard  with  the  indifferency  of 
a  philosopher,  the  perished  suppers  of  Kirkwall. 

I  quitted  my  lodgings  for  church  next  morning  about 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  ere  the  service  commenced ;  and, 
finding  the  doors  shut,  sauntered  up  the  hill  that  rises  im- 
mediately over  the  town.  The  thick  gloomy  Aveather  had 
passed  with  the  night ;  and  a  still,  bright,  clear-eyed  Sab- 
bath looked  cheerily  down  on  green  isle  and  blue  sea.  I 
was  quite  unprepared  by  any  previous  description,  for  the 
imposing  assemblage  of  ancient  buildings  which  Kirkwall 
presents  full  in  the  foreground,  Avhen  viewed  from  the  road 
which  ascends  along  this  hilly  slope  to  the  uplands.  So 
thickly  are  they  massed  together,  that,  seen  from  one  special 
point  of  view,  they  seem  a  portion  of  some  magnificent  city 
in  ruins,  —  some  such  city  though  in  a  widely  different  style 
of  architecture,  as  Palmyi-a  or  Baalbec.  The  Cathedral  of 
St.  Magnus  rises  on  the  right,  the  castle-palace  of  Earl  Pat- 
rick Stuart  on  the  left,  the  bishop's  palace  in  the  space  be- 
tween; and  all  three  occupy  sites  so  contiguous,  that  a 
distance  of  some  two  or  three  hundred  yards  abreast  gives 
the  proper  angle  for  taking  in  the  whole  group  at  a  glance. 
I  know  no  such  group  elsewhere  in  Scotland.  The  church 
and  palace  of  Linlithgow  are  in  such  close  proximity,  that, 
seen  together,  relieved  against  the  blue  gleam  of  their  lake, 
they  form  one  magnificent  pile ;  but  we  have  here  a  taller, 
and,  notwithstanding  its  Saxon  plainness,  a  nobler  church, 
than  that  of  the  southern  burgh,  and  at  least  one  palace 
more.  And  the  associations  connected  with  the  church, 
and  at  least  one  of  the  palaces  ascend  to  a  remoter  and  more 
picturesque  antiquity.  The  castle-palace  of  Earl  Patrick 
dates  from  but  the  time  of  James  the  Sixth  ;  but  in  the 
palace  of  the  bishop,  old  grim  Haco  died,  after  his  defeat  at 
Largs,  "of  grief,"  says  Buchanan,  "  for  the  loss  of  his  army, 
and  of  a  valiant  youth  his  relation ;"  and  in  the  ancient  Ca- 
36* 


426  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

thedral,  his  body,  previous  to  its  removal  to  Xorway,  was 
interred  for  a  winter.  The  church  and  palace  belong  to  the 
obscure  dawn  of  the  national  history,  and  were  Norwegian 
for  centuries  before  they  were  Scotch. 

As  I  was  coming  down  the  hill  at  a  snail's  pace,  I  was 
overtaken  by  a  countryman  on  his  way  to  church.  "  Yo'll 
hae  conie,"  he  said,  addressing  me,  "  wi'  the  great  man  iast 
night ? "  "I  came  in  the  steamer,"  I  replied,  " with  your 
Member,  Mr.  Dundas."  "  O,  aye,"  rejoined  the  man;  "but 
I  'm  no  sure  he  '11  be  our  Member  next  time.  The  Volun- 
taries yonder,  ye  see,"  jerking  his  head,  as  he  spoke,  in  the 
direction  of  the  United  Secession  chapel  of  the  place,  "  are 
awfu'  strong  and  unco  radical ;  and  the  Free  Kirk  folk  will 
soon  be  as  bad  as  them.  But  I  belong  to  the  Establish- 
ment ;  and  I  side  wi'  Dundas."  The  aristocracy  of  Scot- 
land committed,  I  am  afraid,  a  sad  blunder  when  they 
attempted  strengthening  their  influence  as  a  class  by  seizing 
hold  of  the  Church  patronages.  They  have  fared  somewhat 
like  those  sailors  of  Ulysses  who,  in  seeking  to  appropriate 
their  master's  wealth,  let  out  the  winds  upon  themselves ; 
and  there  is  now,  in  consequence,  a  perilous  voyage  and  an 
uncertain  landing  before  them.  It  was  the  patronate  wedge 
that  struck  from  off  the  Scottish  Establishment  at  least 
nine-tenths  of  the  Dissenters  of  the  kingdom,  —  its  Seces- 
sion bodies,  its  Relief  body,  and,  finally,  its  Free  Church 
denomination,  —  comprising  in  their  aggregate  amount  a 
great  and  influential  majority  of  the  Scotch  people.  Our 
older  Dissenters,  —  a  circumstance  inevitable  to  their  posi- 
tion as  such,  —  have  been  thrown  into  the  movement  party : 
the  Free  Church,  in  her  present  transition  state,  sits  loose 
to  all  the  various  political  sections  of  the  country  ;  but  her 
natural  tendency  is  towards  the  movement  party  also ;  and 
already,  in  consequence,  do  our  Scottish  aristocracy  possess 
greatly  less  political  influence  in  the  kingdom  of  which  they 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  427 

own  almost  all  the  soil,  than  that  wielded  by  their  brethren 
the  Irish  and  English  aristocracy  in  their  respective  divisions 
of  the  empire.     Were  the  representation  of  England  and 
Ireland  as  liberal  as  that  of  Scotland,  and  as  little  influenced 
by  the  aristocracy,  Conservatism,  on  the  passing  of  the  Re- 
form Bill,  might  have  taken  leave  of  office  for  evermore. 
And  yet  neither  the  English  nor  Irish  are  naturally  so 
Conservative  as  the  Scotch.     The  patronate   wedge,  like 
that  appropriated  by  Achan,  has  been  disastrous  to  the 
people,  for  it  has  lost  to  them  the  great  benefits  of  a  reli- 
gious  Establishment,  and   very  great  these   arc ;   but  it 
threatens,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sons  of  Carmi  of  old,  to  work 
more  serious  evil  to  those  by  whom  it  was  originally  cov- 
eted, — "  evil  to  themselves  and  all  their  house."      As  I 
approached  the  Free  Church,  a  squat,  sun-burned,  carnal- 
minded  "  old  wee  wifie,"  who  seemed  passing  towards  the 
Secession  place  of  worship,  after  looking  wistfully  at  my 
gray  maud,  and  concluding  for  certain  that  I  could  not  be 
other  than  a  Southland  drover,  came  up  to  me,  and  asked, 
in  a  cautious  whisper,  "  Will  ye  be  wan  tin'  a  coo  ?"     I  re- 
plied in  the  negative;  and  the  wee  wifie,  after  casting  a 
jealous  glance  at  a  group  of  grave-featured  Free  Church 
folk  in  our  immediate  neighborhood,  who  would  scarce  have 
tolerated  Sabbath  trading  in  a  Seceder,  tucked  up  her  little 
blue  cloak  over  her  head,  and  hied  away  to  the  chapel. 

In  the  Free  Church  pulpit  I  recognized  an  old  friend,  to 
whom  I  introduced  myself  at  the  close  of  the  service,  and 
by  whom  I  was  introduced,  in  turn,  to  several  intelligent 
members  of  his  session,  to  whose  kindness  I  owed,  on  the 
following  day,  introductions  to  some  of  the  less  accessible 
curiosities  of  the  place.  I  rose  betimes  on  the  morning  of 
Monday,  that  I  might  have  leisure  enough  before  me  to  see 
them  all,  and  broke  my  first  ground  in  Orkney  as  a  geolo- 
gist in  a  quarry  a  few  hundred  yards  to  the  south  and  east 


428  HA.MELES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

of  the  town.  It  is  strange  enough  how  frequently  the  ex- 
plorer in  the  Old  Red  finds  himself  restricted  in  a  locality 
to  well  nigh  a  single  organism,  —  an  effect,  probably,  of 
some  gregarious  instinct  in  the  ancient  fishes  of  this  forma- 
tion, similar  to  that  which  characterizes  so  many  of  the 
fishes  of  the  present  time,  or  of  some  peculiarity  in  their 
constitution,  which  made  each  choose  for  itself  a  peculiar 
habitat.  In  this  quarry,  though  abounding  in  broken  re- 
mains, I  found  scarce  a  single  fragment  which  did  not  belong 
to  an  exceedingly  minute  species  of  Coccosteus,  of  which 
my  first  specimen  had  been  sent  me  a  few  years  before  by 
Mr.  Robert  Dick,  from  the  neighborhood  of  Thurso,  and 
which  I  at  that  time,  judging  from  its  general  proportions, 
had  set  down  as  the  young  of  the  Coccosteus  cuspidatus. 
Its  apparent  gregariousness,  too,  quite  as  marked  at  Thurso 
as  in  this  quarry,  had  assisted,  on  the  strength  of  an  obvious 
enough  analogy,  in  leading  to  the  conclusion.  There  are 
several  species  of  the  existing  fish,  well  known  on  our 
coasts,  that,  though  solitary  when  fully  grown,  are  grega- 
rious when  young.  The  coal-fish,  which  as  the  sillock  of  a 
few  inches  in  length  congregates  by  thousands,  but  as  the 
colum-saw  of  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  feet  is  a  solitary 
fish,  forms  a  familiar  instance ;  and  I  had  inferred  that  the 
Coccosteus,  found  solitary,  in  most  instances,  when  at 
its  full  size,  had,  like  the  coal-fish,  congregated  in  shoals 
when  in  a  state  of  immaturity.  But  a  more  careful  ex- 
amination of  the  specimens  leads  me  to  conclude  that  this 
minute  gregarious  Coccosteus,  so  abundant  in  this  locality 
that  its  fragments  thickly  speckle  the  strata  for  hundreds 
of  yards  together — (in  one  instance  I  found  the  dorsal 
plates  of  four  individuals  crowded  into  a  piece  of  flag 
barely  six  inches  square)  —  was  in  reality  a  distinct  spe- 
cies. Though  not  more  than  one-fourth  the  size,  meas- 
ured linearly,  of  the  Coccosteus  decipiens,  ?.ts  plates  ex- 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  429 

hibit  as  many  of  those  lines  of  increment  which  gave  to 
the  occipital  buckler  of  the  creature  its  tortoise-like  appear- 
ance, and  through  which  plates  of  the  buckler  species  Avere 
at  first  mistaken  for  those  of  a  Chelonian,  as  are  exhibited 
by  plates  of  the  larger  kinds,  Avith  an  area  ten  times  as 
great ;  its  tubercles,  too,  some  of  them  of  microscopic  size, 
are  as  numerous; — evidences,  I  think, — Avhen  we  take  into 
account  that  in  the  bulkier  species  the  lines  and  tubercles 
increased  in  number  Avith  the  groAvth  of  the  plates,  and  that, 
once  formed,  they  seem  never  to  have  been  affected  by  the 
subsequent  enlargement  of  the  creature, — that  this  ich- 
thyolite  was  not  an  immature,  but  really  a  miniature  Coc- 
costcus.  We  may  see  on  the  plates  of  the  full-grown 
Coccosteus,  as  on  the  shells  of  bivalves,  such  as  Cardium 
echinatum,  or  on  those  of  spiral  univalves,  such  as  Jiuc- 
cinum  undatum,  the  diminutive  markings  Avhich  they  bore 
Avhcn  the  creature  was  young ;  and  on  the  plates  of  this 
species  AVC  may  detect  a  regular  gradation  of  tubercles  from 
the  microscopic  to  the  minute,  as  AVC  may  see  on  the  plates 
of  the  larger  kinds  a  regular  gradation  from  the  minute  to 
the  full-sized.  The  average  length  of  the  dwarf  Coccosteus 
of  Thurso  and  KirkAATall,  taken  from  the  snout  to  the  pointed 
termination  of  the  dorsal  plate,  ranges  from  one  and  a-half 
to  two  inches ;  its  entire  length  from  head  to  tail  probably 
from  three  to  four.  It  Avas  from  one  of  Mr.  Dick's  speci- 
mens of  this  species  that  I  first  determined  the  true  position 
of  the  eyes  of  the  Coccosteus,  —  a  position  Avhich  some  of 
my  lately-found  ichthyolites  conclusively  demonstrate,  and 
Avhich  Agassiz,  in  his  restoration,  deceived  by  ill-preserved 
specimens,  has  fixed  at  a  point  considerably  more  lateral  and 
posterior,  and  Avhere  eyes  would  have  been  of  greatly  less 
use  to  the  animal.  About  a  field's  breadth  below  this 
quarry  of  the  Coccosteus  minor,  —  if  I  may  take  the  liberty 
of  extemporizing  a  name,  until  such  time  as  some  person 


430  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

better  qualified  furnishes  the  creature  with  a  more  charac- 
teristic one,  —  there  are  the  remains,  consisting  of  fosse  and 
rampart,  with  a  single  cannon  lying  red  and  honeycombed 
amid  the  ruins,  of  one  of  Cromwell's  forts,  built  to  protect 
the  town  against  the  assaults  of  an  enemy  from  the  sea.  In 
the  few  and  stormy  years  during  which  this  ablest  of  Brit- 
ish governors  ruled  over  Scotland,  he  seems  to  have  exer- 
cised a  singularly  vigilant  eye.  The  claims  on  his  protection 
of  even  the  remote  Kirkwall  did  not  escape  him. 

The  antiquities  of  the  burgh  next  engaged  me ;  and,  as 
became  its  dignity  and  importance,  I  began  with  the 
Cathedral,  a  building  imposing  enough  to  rank  among  the 
most  impressive  of  its  class  anywhere,  but  whose  peculiar 
setting  in  this  remote  northern  country,  joined  to  the  asso- 
ciations of  its  early  history  with  the  Scandinavian  Hollos, 
Sigurds,  Einars,  and  Hacos  of  our  dingier  chronicles,  serve 
greatly  to  enhance  its  interest.  It  is  a  noble  pile,  built  of 
a  dark-tinted  Old  Red  Sandstone, — a  stone  which,  though 
by  much  too  sombre  for  adequately  developing  the  elegan- 
cies of  the  Grecian  or  Roman  architecture,  to  which  a  light 
delicate  tone  of  color  seems  indispensable,  harmonizes  well 
with  the  massier  and  less  florid  styles  of  the  Gothic.  The 
round  arch  of  that  ancient  Norman  school  which  was  at 
one  time  so  generally  recognized  as  Saxon,  prevails  in  the 
edifice,  and  marks  out  its  older  portions.  A  few  of  the 
arches  present  on  their  ringstones  those  characteristic 
toothed  and  zig-zag  ornaments  that  are  of  not  unfamiliar 
occurrence  on  the  round  squat  doorways  of  the  older 
parish  churches  of  England;  but  by  much  the  greater 
number  exhibit  merely  a  few  rude  mouldings,  that  bend 
over  ponderous  columns  and  massive  capitals,  imfretted  by 
the  tool  of  the  carver.  Though  of  colossal  magnificence, 
the  exterior  of  the  edifice  yields  in  effect,  as  in  all  true 
Gothic  buildings,  —  for  the  Gothic  is  greatest  in  what  the 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  431 

Grecian  is  least,  —  to  the  sombre  sublimity  of  the  interior. 
The  nave,  flanked  by  the  dim  deep  aisles,  and  by  a  double 
row  of  smooth-stemmed  gigantic  columns,  supporting  each 
a  double  tier  of  ponderous  arches,  and  the  transepts,  with 
their  three  tiers  of  small  Norman  windows,  and  their  bold 
semi-circular  arcs,  demurely  gay  with  toothed  or  angular 
carvings,  that  speak  of  the  days  of  Rolf  and  Torfeinar,  are 
singularly  fine,  —  far  superior  to  aught  else  of  the  kind  in 
Scotland;  and  a  happy  accident  has  added  greatly  to 
their  effect.  A  rare  Byssus,  —  the  Byssus  aeruyinosa  of 
Linnaaus, —  the  Leprasia  aeruyinosa  of  modern  botanists, 
—  one  of  those  gloomy  vegetables  of  the  damp  cave  and 
dark  mine  whose  true  habitat  is  rather  under  than  upon 
the  earth,  has  crept  over  arch,  and  column,  and  broad  bare 
wall,  and  given  to  well  nigh  the  entire  interior  of  the 
building  a  close-fitted  lining  of  dark  velvety  green,  which, 
like  the  Attic  rust  of  an  ancient  medal,  forms  an  appropri- 
ate covering  to  the  sculpturings  which  it  enwraps  without 
concealing,  and  harmonizes  with  at  once  the  dim  light  and 
the  antique  architecture.  Where  the  sun  streamed  upon 
it,  high  over  head,  through  the  narrow  windows  above,  it 
reminded  me  of  a  pall  of  rich  green  velvet.  It  seems  sub- 
ject, on  some  of  the  lower  mouldings  and  damper  recesses, 
especially  amid  the  tombs  and  in  the  aisles,  to  a  decom- 
posing mildew,  which  eats  into  it  in  fantastic  map-like 
lines  of  mingled  black  and  gray,  so  resembling  Runic  fret- 
work, that  I  had  some  difficulty  in  convincing  myself  that 
the  tracery  which  it  forms,  —  singularly  appropriate  to  the 
architecture,  —  was  not  .the  effect  of  design.  The  choir 
and  chancel  of  the  edifice,  which  at  the  time  of  my  visit 
were  still  employed  as  the  parish  church  of  Kirkwall,  and 
had  become  a  "  world  too  wide  "  for  the  shrunken  congre- 
gation, are  more  modern  and  ornate  than  the  nave  and 
transepts ;  and  the  round  arch  gives  place,  in  at  least  their 


432  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

windows,  to  the  pointed  one.  But  the  unique  consistency 
of  the  pile  is  scarce  at  all  disturbed  by  this  mixture  of 
styles.  It  is  truly  wonderful  how  completely  the  forgotten 
architects  of  the  darker  ages  contrived  to  avoid  those 
gross  offences  against  good  taste  and  artistic  feeling  into 
which  their  successors  of  a  greatly  more  enlightened  time 
are  continually  falling.  Instead  of  idly  courting  ornament 
for  its  own  sake,  they  must  have  had  as  their  proposed 
object  the  production  of  some  definite  effect,  or  the  devel- 
opment of  some  special  sentiment.  It  was  perhaps  well 
for  them,  too,  that  they  were  not  so  overladen  as  our  mod- 
era  architects  with  the  learning  of  their  profession.  Exten- 
sive knowledge  requires  great  judgment  to  guide  it.  If 
that  high  genius  which  can  impart  its  own  homogeneous 
character  to  very  various  materials  be  wanting,  the  more 
multifarious  a  man's  ideas  become,  the  more  is  he  in  dan- 
ger of  straining  after  a  heterogeneous  patch-work  excel- 
lence, which  is  but  excellence  in  its  components,  and 
deformity  as  a  whole.  Every  new  vista  opened  up  to  him 
on  what  has  been  produced  in  his  art  elsewhere  pi-esents 
to  him  merely  a  new  avenue  of  error.  His  mind  becomes 
a  mere  damaged  kaleidoscope,  full  of  little  broken  pieces 
of  the  fair  and  the  exquisite,  but  devoid  of  that  nicely 
reflective  machinery  which  can  alone  cast  the  fragments 
into  shapes  of  a  chaste  and  harmonious  beauty. 

Judging  from  the  sculptures  of  St.  Magnus,  the  stone- 
cutter seems  to  have  had  but  an  indifferent  command  of 
his  trade  in  Orkney,  when  there  was  a  good  deal  known 
about  it  elsewhere.  And  yet  the  rudeness  of  his  work 
here,  much  in  keeping  with  the  ponderous  simplicity  of 
the  architecture,  serves  but  to  link  on  the  pile  to  a  more 
venerable  antiquity,  and  speaks  less  of  the  inartificial  than 
of  the  remote.  I  saw  a  gi-otesque  hatchment  high  up 
among  the  arches,  that,  with  the  uncouth  carvings  below, 


RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST.  433 

served  to  throw  some  light  on  the  introduction  into  eccle- 
siastical edifices  of  those  ludicrous  sculptures  that  seem  so 
incongruously  foreign  to  the  proper  use  and  character  of 
such  places.  The  painter  had  set  himself,  with,  I  doubt 
not,  fair  moral  intent,  to  exhibit  a  skeleton  wrapped  up  in 
a  winding-sheet ;  but,  like  the  unlucky  artist  immortalized 
by  Gifford,  who  proposed  painting  a  lion,  but  produced 
merely  a  dog,  his  skill  had  failed  in  seconding  his  inten- 
tions, and,  instead  of  achieving  a  Death  in  a  shroud,  he 
had  achieved  but  a  monkey  grinning  in  a  towel.  His  con- 
temporaries, however,  unlike  those  of  Gifford's  artist,  do 
not  seem  to  have  found  out  the  mistake,  and  so  the 
betowelled  monkey  has  come  to  hold  a  conspicuous  place 
among  the  solemnities  of  the  Cathedral.  It  does  not  seem 
difficult  to  conceive  how  imintentional  ludicrosities  of  this 
nature,  introduced  into  ecclesiastical  erections  in  ages  too 
little  critical  to  distinguish  between  what  the  workman 
had  purposed  doing  and  what  he  had  done,  might  come 
to  be  regarded,  in  a  less  earnest  but  more  knowing  age, 
as  precedents  for  the  introduction  of  the  intentionally 
comic  and  grotesque.  Innocent  accidental  monkeys  in 
towels  may  have  thus  served  to  usher  into  sei'ious  neigh- 
borhoods monkeys  in  towels  that  were  such  with  malice 
prepense. 

I  was  shown  an  opening  in  the  masonry,  rather  more 
than  a  man's  height  from  the  floor,  that  marked  where  a 
square  narroAV  cell,  formed  in  the  thickness  of  the  wall, 
had  been  laid  open  a  few  years  before.  And  in  the  cell 
there  was  found  depending  from  the  middle  of  the  roof  a 
rusty  iron  chain,  with  a  bit  of  barley-bread  attached. 
What  could  the  chain  and  bit  of  bread  have  meant?  Had 
they  dangled  in  the  remote  past  over  some  northern  Ugo- 
lino?  or  did  they  form  in  their  dark  narrow  cell,  without 
air-hole  or  outlet,  merely  some  of  the  reserve  terrors  of  the 


434  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

Cathedral,  efficient  in  bending  to  the  authority  of  the 
Church  the  rebellious  monk  or  refractory  nun  ?  Ere  quit- 
ting the  building,  I  scaled  the  great  tower,  —  considerably 
less  tall,  it  is  said,  than  its  predecessor,  which  was  destroyed 
by  lightning  about  two  hundred  years  ago,  but  quite  tall 
enough  to  command  an  extensive,  and,  though  bare,  not 
unimpressive  prospect.  Two  arms  of  the  sea,  that  cut  so 
deeply  into  the  mainland  on  its  opposite  sides  as  to  nar- 
row it  into  a  flat  neck  little  more  than  a  mile  and  a  half  in 
breadth,  stretch  away  in  long  vista,  the  one  to  the  south, 
and  the  other  to  the  north;  and  so  immediately  is  the 
Cathedral  perched  on  the  isthmus  between,  as  to  be  nearly 
equally  conspicuous  from  both.  It  forms  in  each,  to  the 
inward-bound  vessel,  the  terminal  object  in  the  landscape. 
There  was  not  much  to  admire  in  the  town  immediately 
beneath,  with  its  roofs  of  gray  slate,  —  almost  the  only 
parts  of  it  visible  from  this  point  of  view,  —  and  its  bare 
treeless  suburbs ;  nor  yet  in  the  tract  of  mingled  hill  and 
moor  on  either  hand,  into  which  the  island  expands  from 
the  narrow  neck,  like  the  two  ends  of  a  sand-glass ;  but 
the  long  withdrawing  ocean-avenues  between,  that  seemed 
approaching  from  south  and  north  to  kiss  the  feet  of  the 
proud  Cathedral,  —  avenues  here  and  there  enlivened  on 
their  ground  of  deep  blue  by  a  sail,  and  fringed  on  the  lee 
—  for  the  wind  blew  freshly  in  the  clear  sunshine  —  with 
their  border  of  dazzling  white,  were  objects  worth  while 
climbing  the  tower  to  see.  Ere  my  descent,  my  guide 
hammered  out  of  the  towei*-bells,  on  my  special  behalf, 
somewhat,  I  daresay,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  burghers 
below,  a  set  of  chimes  handed  down  entire,  in  all  the 
notes,  from  the  times  of  the  monks,  from  which  also  the 
four  fine  bells  of  the  Cathedral  have  descended  as  an  heir- 
loom to  the  burgh.  The  chimes  would-  have  delighted 

o  o 

the  heart  of  old  Lisle  Bowles,  the  poet  of 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  435 

"  Wcll-tun'd  bell's  enchanting  harmony." 

I  could,  however,  have  preferred  listening  to  their  music, 
though  it  seemed  really  very  sweet,  a  few  hundred  yards 
further  away ;  and  the  quiet  clerical  poet,  —  the  restorer 
of  the  Sonnet  in  England,  would,  I  doubt  not,  have  been 
of  the  same  mind.  The  oft-recurring  tones  of  those  bells 
that  ring  throughout  his  verse,  and  to  which  Byron  wick- 
edly proposed  adding  a  cap,  form  but  an  ingredient  of  the 
poetry  in  which  he  describes  them ;  and  they  are  repre- 
sented always  as  distant  tones,  that,  while  they  mingle 
with  the  softer  harmonies  of  nature,  never  overpower  them. 

"  How  sweet  the  tuneful  bells  responsive  peal! 

***** 

And,  hark !  with  lessening  cadence  now  they  fall, 

And  now,  along  the  white  and  level  tide 

They  fling  their  melancholy  music  wide! 
Bidding  me  many  a  tender  thought  recall 
Of  happy  hours  departed,  and  those  years 

When,  from  an  antique  tower,  ere  life's  fair  prime, 

The  mournful  mazes  of  their  mingling  chime 
First  wak'd  my  wondering  childhood  into  tears !  " 

From  the  Cathedral  I  passed  to  the  mansion  of  Old  Earl 
Patrick,  —  a  stately  ruin,  in  the  more  ornate  castellated 
style  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  stands  in  the  middle  of  a 
dense  thicket  of  what  are  trying  to  be  trees,  and  have  so 
far  succeeded,  that  they  conceal,  on  one  of  the  sides,  the 
lower  story  of  the  building,  and  rise  over  the  spring  of 
the  large  richly-decorated  turrets.  These  last  form  so 
much  nearer  the  base  of  the  edifice  than  is  common  in  our 
old  castles,  that  they  exhibit  the  appearance  rather  of  hang- 
ing towers  than  of  turrets,  —  of  towers  with  their  founda- 
tions cut  away.  The  projecting  windows,  with  their  deep 
mouldings,  square  mullions,  and  cruciform  shot-holes,  are 


436  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

rich  specimens  of  their  peculiar  style ;  and,  with  the  double- 
windowed  turrets  with  which  they  range,  they  communi- 
cate a  sort  of  high-relief  effect  to  the  entire  erection,  "  the 
exterior  proportions  and  ornaments  of  which,"  says  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  in  his  Journal,  "are  very  handsome." 
Though  a  roofless  and  broken  ruin,  with  the  rank  grass 

o  *  o 

waving  on  its  walls,  it  is  still  a  piece  of  very  solid  masonry, 
and  must  have  been  rather  stiff  working  as  a  quarry. 
Some  painstaking  burgher  had,  I  found,  made  a  desperate 
attempt  on  one  of  the  huge  chimney  lintels  of  the  great 
hall  of  the  erection,  —  an  apartment  which  Sir  Walter 
greatly  admired,  and  in  which  he  lays  the  scene  in  the 
"Pirate"  between  Cleveland  and  Jack  Bunce,  but  the 
lintel,  a  curious  example  of  what,  in  the  exercise  of  a  little 
Irish  liberty,  is  sometimes  termed  a  rectilinear  arch,  defied 
his  utmost  efforts  ;  and,  after  half-picking  out  the  keystone, 
he  had  to  give  it  up  in  despair.  The  bishop's  palace,  of 
which  a  handsome  old  tower  still  remains  tolerably  entire, 
also  served  for  a  quarry  in  its  day ;  and  I  was  scarce  suffi- 
ciently distressed  to  learn,  that  on  almost  the  last  occasion 
on  which  it  had  been  wrought  for  this  purpose,  one  of  the 
two  men  engaged  in  the  employment  suffered  a  stone, 
which  he  had  loosed  out  of  the  Avail,  to  drop  on  the  head 
of  his  companion,  who  stood  watching  for  it  below,  and 
killed  him  011  the  spot. 


CHAPTER     XI. 

The  Bishop's  Palace  at  Orkney  —  Haco  the  Norwegian  —  Icelandic  Chronicle 
respecting  his  Expedition  to  Scotland  —  His  Death— Removal  of  his  Re- 
mains to  Norway  —Why  Norwegian  Invasion  ceased  —  Straw-plaiting  —  The 
Lassies  of  Orkney  —  Orkney  Type  of  Countenance  —  Celtic  and  Scandi- 
navian —  An  accomplished  Antiquary  —  Old  Manuscripts  —  An  old  Tune- 
book  —  Manuscript  Letter  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  —  Letters  of  General 
Mouck  —  The  fearless  Covenanter  —  Cave  of  the  Rebels  —  Why  the  tragedy 
of  "  Gustavus  Vasa  "  was  prohibited  —  Quarry  of  Pickoquoy  —  Its  Fossil 
Shells  —  Journey  to  Stromness  —  Scenery—  Birth-place  of  Malcolm,  the  Poet 
—  His  History  —  One  of  his  Poems  —  His  Brother  a  Free  Church  Minister  — 
New  Scenery. 

THE  "  upper  story  "  of  the  bishop's  palace,  in  which  grim 
old  Haco  died,  —  thanks  to  the  economic  burghers  who 
converted  the  stately  ruin  into  a  quarry,  —  has  wholly  dis- 
appeared. Though  the  death  of  this  last  of  the  Norwegian 
invaders  does  not  date  more  than  ten  years  previous  to  the 
birth  of  the  Bruce,  it  seems  to  belong,  notwithstanding,  to 
a  different  and  greatly  more  ancient  period  of  Scottish  his- 
tory ;  as  if  it  came  under  the  influence  of  a  sort  of  aerial 
perspective,  similar  to  that  which  makes  a  neighboring  hill 
in  a  fog  appear  as  remote  as  a  distant  mountain  when  the 
atmosphere  is  clearer.  Our  national  wars  with  the  English 
were  rendered  familiar  to  our  country  folk  of  the  last  age, 
and  for  centuries  before  by  the  old  Scotch  "  Makkaris," 
Barbour  and  Blind  Harry,  and  in  our  own  times  by  the 
glowing  narratives  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  —  magicians  who, 
unlike  -those  ancient  sorcerers  that  used  to  darken  the  air 
with  their  incantations,  possessed  the  rare  power  of  dissi- 


488  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

pating  the  mists  and  vapors  of  the  historic  atmosphere,  and 
rendering  it  transparent.  But  we  had  no  such  chroniclers 
of  the  time,  though  only  half  an  age  further  removed  into 
the  past, 

"  When  Norse  and  Danish  galleys  plied 
Their  oars  within  the  frith  of  Clyde, 
And  floated  Haco's  banner  trim 
Above  Xonveyan  warriors  grim, 
Savage  of  heart  and  large  of  limb." 

And  hence  the  thick  haze  in  which  it  is  enveloped.  Curi- 
ously enough,  however,  this  period,  during  which  the  wild 
Scot  had  to  contend  with  the  still  wilder  wanderers  of 
Scandinavia  in  fierce  combats  that  he  was  too  little  skilful 
to  record,  and  which  appears  so  obscure  and  remote  to  his 
descendants,  presents  a  phase  comparatively  near,  and  an 
outline  proportionally  sharp  and  well-defined  to  the  .intel- 
ligent peasantry  of  Iceland.  Their  Barbours  and  Blind 
Harries  came  a  few  ages  sooner  than  ours,  and  the  fog,  in 
consequence,  rose  earlier ;  and  so,  while  Scotch  antiquaries 
of  no  mean  standing  can  say  almost  nothing  about  the  ex- 
pedition or  death-bed  of  Haco,  even  the  humbler  Icelanders, 
taught  from  their  Sagas  in  the  long  winter  nights,  can  tell 
how,  harassed  by  anxiety  and  fatigue,  the  "monarch  sick- 
ened, and  recovered,  and  sickened  again ;  and  how,  dying 
in  the  bishop's  palace,  his  body  was  interred  for  a  Avinter  in 
the  Cathedral,  and  then  borne  in  spring  to  the  burying-place 
of  his  ancestors  in  Norway.  The  only  clear  vista  on  the 
death  of  Haco  which  now  exists  is  that  presented  by  an 
Icelandic  chronicler :  to  which,  as  it  seems  so  little  known 
even  in  Orkney  that  the  burying-place  of  the  monarch  is 
still  occasionally  sought  for  in  the  Cathedral,  I  must  in- 
troduce the  reader.  I  quote  from  an  extract  containing 
the  account  of  Haco's  expedition  against  Scotland,  which 
was  "  translated  from  the  original  Icelandic  by  the  Rev. 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  439 

James  Johnstone,  chaplain  to  his  Britannic  Majesty's  Envoy 
Extraordinary  at  the  court  of  Denmark,  and  appeared  in 
the  " Edinburgh  Magazine"  for  1787. 

o  o 

"  King  Haco,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  now  in  the  seven 
and  fortieth  year  of  his  reign,  had  spent  the  summer  in 
watchfulness  and  anxiety.  Being  often  called  to  deliberate 
with  his  captains^he  had  enjoyed  little  rest;  and  when  he 
arrived  at  Kirkwall,  he  was  confined  to  his  bed  by  his  dis- 
order. Having  lain  for  some  nights,  the  illness  abated, 
and  he  was  on  foot  for  three  days.  On  the  first  day  he 
walked  about  in  his  apartments ;  on  the  second  he  attended 
at  the  bishop's  chapel  to  hear  mass ;  and  on  the  third  he 
went  to  Magnus  Church,  and  walked  round  the  shrine  of 
St.  Magnus,  Earl  of  Orkney.  He  then  ordered  a  bath  to 
be  prepared,  and  got  himself  shaved.  Some  nights  after, 
he  relapsed,  and  took  again  to  his  bed.  During  his  sick- 
ness he  ordered  the  Bible  and  Latin  authors  to  be  read  to 
him.  But  finding  his  spirits  were  too  much  fatigued  by 
reflecting  on  what  he  had  heard,  he  desired  Norwegian 
books  might  be  read  to  him  night  and  day :  first  the  lives 
of  saints;  and,  when  they  were  ended,  he  made  his  at- 
tendants read  the  Chronicles  of  our  Kings,  from  Holden  the 
Black,  and  so  of  all  the  Norwegian  monarchs  in  succession, 
one  after  the  other.  The  king  still^  found  his  disorder  in- 
creasing. He  therefore  took  into  consideration  the  pay  to 
be  given  to  his  troops,  and  commanded  that  a  merk  of  fine 
silver  should  be  given  to  each  courtier,  and  half  a  merk  to 
each  of  the  masters  of  the  lights,  chamberlain,  and  other 
attendants  on  his  person.  He  ordered  all  the  silver-plate 
belonging  to  his  table  to  be  weighed,  and  to  be  distributed 
if  his  standard  silver  fell  short.  *  *  *  King  Haco  re- 
ceived extreme  unction  on  the  night  before  the  festival  of 
St.  Lucia.  Thorgisl,  Bishop  of  Stravanger,  Gilbert,  Bishop 
of  Hauiar,  Henry,  Bishop  of  Orkney,  Albert  Thorleif  and 


440  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

many  other  learned  men,  were  present;  and,  before  the 
unction,  all  present  bade  the  king  farewell  with  a  kiss.  * 
*  *  The  festival  of  the  Virgin  St.  Lucia  happened  on  a 
Thursday;  and  on  the  Saturday  after,  the  king's  disorder 
increased  to  such  a  degree,  that  he  lost  the  use  of  his 
speech ;  and  at  midnight  Almighty  God  called  King  Haco 
out  of  this  mortal  life.  This  Avas  matter  of  great  grief  to 
all  those  who  attended,  r.nd  to  most  of  those  who  heard  • 
of  the  event.  The  following  barons  were  present  at  the 
death  of  the  king:  —  Briniolf  Johnson,  Erling  Alfson, 
John  Drottning,  Ronald  Urka,  and  some  domestics  who 
had  been  near  the  king's  person  during  his  illness.  Imme- 
diately on  the  decease  of  the  king,  bishops  and  learned 
men  were  sent  for  to  sing  mass.  *  *  *  On  Sunday  the 
royal  corpse  was  carried  to  the  upper  hall,  and  laid  on  a 
bier.  The  body  was  clothed  in  a  rich  garb,  with  a  gar- 
land on  its  head,  and  dressed  out  as  became  a  crowned 
monarch.  The  masters  of  the  lights  stood  with  tapers  in 
their  hands,  and  the  whole  hall  was  illuminated.  All  the 
people  came  to  see  the  body,  which  appeared  beautiful 
and  animated ;  and  the  king's  countenance  was  as  fair  and 
ruddy  as  while  he  was  alive.  It  was  some  alleviation  of 
the  deep  sorrow  of  the  beholders  to  see  the  corpse  of  their 
departed  sovereign  so  decorated.  High  mass  was  then 
sung  for  the  deceased.  The  nobility  kept  watch  by  the 
body  during  the  night.  On  Monday  the  remains  of  King 
Haco  were  carried  to  St.  Magnus  Church,  where  they  lay  in 
state  that  night.  On  Tuesday  the  royal  corpse  was  put  in 
a  coffin,  and  buried  in  the  choir  of  St.  Magnus  Church,  near 
the  steps  leading  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Magnus,  Earl  of  Ork- 
ney. The  tomb  was  then  closed,  and  a  canopy  was  spread 
over  it.  It  was  also  determined  that  watch  should  be  kept 
over  the  Ring's  grave  all  winter.  At  Christmas  the  bishop 
and  Andrew  Plytt  furnished  entertainments,  as  the  king 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  441 

had  directed ;  and  good  presents  were  given  to  all  the 
soldiers.  King  Haco  had  given  orders  that  his  remains 
should  be  carried  east  to  Norway,  and  buried  near  his 
fathers  and  relatives.  Towards  the  end  of  winter,  there- 
fore, that  great  vessel  which  he  had  in  the  west  was 
.  launched,  and  soon  got  ready.  On  Ash  "Wednesday  the 
corpse  of  King  Haco  was  taken  out  of  the  ground :  this 
happened  the  third  of  the  nones  of  March.  The  courtiers 
followed  the  corpse  to  Skalpeid,  where  the  ship  lay,  and 
which  was  chiefly  under  *the  direction  of  the  Bishop 
Thorgisl  and  Andrew  Plytt.  They  put  to  sea  on  the  first 
Saturday  in  Lent ;  but,  meeting  with  hard  weather,  they 
steered  for  Silavog.  From  this  place  they  wrote  letters  to 
Prince  Magnus,  acquainting  him  with  the  news,  and  then 
sailed  for  Bergen.  They  arrived  at  Laxavog  before  the 
festival  of  St.  Benedict.  On  that  day  Prince  Magnus 
rowed  out  to  meet  the  corpse.  The  ship  was  brought 
near  to  the  king's  palace,  and  the  body  was  carried  up  to 
a  summer-house.  Next  morning  the  corpse  was  removed 
to  Christ's  Church,  and  was  attended  by  Prince  Magnus, 
the  two  queens,  the  courtiers,  and  the  town's  people.  The 
body  was  then  interred  in  the  choir  of  Christ's  Church ; 
and  Prince  Magnus  addressed  a  long  and  gracious  speech 
to  those  who  attended  the  funeral  procession.  All  the 
multitude  present  were  much  affected,  and  expressed  great 
sorrow  of  mind." 

So  far  the  Icelandic  chronicle.  Each  age  has  as  cer- 
tainly its  own  mode  of  telling  its  stories  as  of  adjusting  its 
dress  or  setting  its  cap ;  and  the  mode  of  this  northern 
historian  is  somewhat  prolix.  I  am  not  sure,  however, 
whether  I  would  not  prefer  the  simple  minuteness  with 
which  he  dwells  on  every  little  circumstance,  to  that  dis- 
sertative  style  of  history  characteristic  of  a  more  reflective 
ao-e,  that  for  series  of  facts  substitutes  bundles  of  theories. 

o     / 


442  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

Cowper  well  describes  the  historians  of  this  latter  school, 
and  shows  how,  on  selecting  some  little-known  personage 
of  a  remote  time  as  their  hero, 

"  They  disentangle  from  the  puzzled  skein 
In  whieh  obscurity  has  wrapped  them  up, 
The  threads  of  politic  and  shrewd  design 
That  ran  through  all  his  purposes,  and  charge 
His  mind  with  meanings  that  he  never  had, 
Or,  having,  kept  concealed." 

I  have  seen  it  elaborately  argued  by  a  writer  of  this  class, 
that  those  wasting  incursions  of  the  Northmen  which  must 
have  been  such  terrible  plagues  to  the  southern  and  west- 
ern countries  of  Europe,  ceased  in  consequence  of  their 
conversion  to  Christianity ;  for  that,  under  the  humanizing 
influence  of  religion,  they  staid  at  home,  and  cultivated 
the  arts  of  peace.  But  the  hypothesis  is,  I  fear,  not  very 
tenable.  Christianity,  in  even  a  purer  form  than  that  in 
which  it  first  found  its  way  among  the  ancient  Scandina- 
vians, and  when  at  least  as  generally  recognized  nationally 
as  it  ever  was  by  the  subjects  of  Haco,  has  failed  to  put 
down  the  trade  of  aggressive  war.  It  did  not  prevent 
honest,  obstinate  George  the  Third  from  warring  with  the 
Americans  or  the  French :  it  only  led  him  to  enjoin  a  day 
of  thanksgiving  when  his  troops  had  slaughtered  a  great 
many  of  the  enemy,  and  to  ordain  a  fast  when  the  enemy 
had  slaughtered,  in  turn,  a  great  many  of  his  troops.  And 
Haco,  who,  though  he  preferred  the  lives  of  the  saints,  and 
even  of  his  ancestors,  who  could  not  have  been  very  great 
saints,  to  the  Scriptures,  seems,  for  a  king,  to  have  been 
a  not  undercut  man  in  his  way,  and  yet  appears  to  have 
had  as  few  compunctious  visitings  on  the  score  of  his 
Scottish  war  as  George  the  Third  on  that  of  the  French 
or  the  American  one.  Christianitv,  too,  ere  his  invasion 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  443 

of  Scotland,  had  been  for  n  considerable  time  established 
in  his  dominions,  and  ought,  were  the  theory  a  true  one, 
to  have  operated  sooner.  The  Cathedral  of  St.  Magnus, 
when  he  walked  round  the  shrine  of  its  patron  saint,  was 
at  least  a  century  old.  The  true  secret  of  the  cessation  of 
Norwegian  invasion  seems  to  have  been  the  consolidation, 
under  vigorous  princes,  of  the  countries  which  had  lain 
open  to  it,  —  a  circumstance  which,  in  the  later  attempts 
of  the  invaders,  led  to  results  similar  to  those  which  broke 
the  heart  of  tough  old  Ilaco,  in  the  bishop's  palace  at 
Ivirkwall. 

From  the  ruins  I  passed  to  the  town,  and  spent  a  not 
uninstructive  half-hour  in  sauntering  along  the  streets  in 
the  quiet  of  the  evening,  acquainting  myself  with  the  gen- 
eral aspect  of  the  people.  I  marked,  as  one  of  the  peculiar 
features  of  the  place,  groups  of  tidily-dressed  young  women, 
engaged  at  the  close-heads  with  their  straw  plait,  —  the 
prevailing  manufacture  of  the  town, —  and  enjoying  at  the 
same  time  the  fresh  air  and  an  easy  chat.  The  special 
contribution  made  by  the  lassies  of  Orkney  to  the  dress  of 
their  female  neighbors  all  over  the  empire,  has  led  to  much 
tasteful  dressing  among  themselves.  Orkney,  on  its  gala 
days,  is  a  land  of  ladies.  What  seems  to  be  the  typical 
countenance  of  these  islands  unites  an  aquiline  but  not 
prominent  nose  to  an  oval  face.  In  the  ordinary  Scotch 
and  English  countenance,  when  the  nose  is  aquiline  it  is 
also  prominent,  and  the  face  is  thin  and  angular,  as  if  the 
additional  height  of  the  central  feature  had  been  given  it 
at  the  expense  of  the  cheeks,  and  of  lateral  shavings  from 
off  the  chin.  The  hard  Dvike-of- Wellington  face  is  illus- 
trative of  this  type.  But  in  the  aquiline  type  of  Orkney 
the  countenance  is  softer  and  fuller,  and,  in  at  least  the 
female  i'ace,  the  general  contour  greatly  more  handsome. 
Dr.  Kombst,  in  his  ethnographic  map  of  Britain  and  Ire- 


444  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

land,  gives  to  the  coast  of  Caithness  and  the  Shetland 
Islands  a  purely  Scandinavian  people,  but  to  the  Orkneys 
a  mixed  race,  which  he  designates  the  Scandinavian-Gaelic. 
I  would  be  inclined,  however,  —  preferring  rather  to  found 
on  those  traits  of  person  and  character  that  are  still  patent, 
than  on  the  nnauthenticated  statements  of  uncertain  his- 
tory, —  to  regard  the  people  as  essentially  one  from  the 
northern  extremity  of  Shetland  to  the  Ord  Hill  of  Caith- 
ness. Beyond  the  Ord  Hill,  and  on  to  the  northern  shores 
of  the  Frith  of  Cromarty,  we  find,  though  unnoted  on  the 
map,  a  different  race,  —  a  race  strongly  marked  by  the 
Celtic  lineaments,  and  speaking  the  Gaelic  tongue.  On 
the  southern  side  of  the  Frith,  and  extending  on  to  the 
Bay  of  Munlochy,  the  purely  Scandinavian  race  again 
occurs.  The  sailors  of  the  Danish  fleet  which  four  years 
ago  accompanied  the  Crown  Prince  in  his  expedition  to 
the  Faroe  Islands  were  astonished  when,  on  landing  at 
Cromarty,  they  recognized  in  the  people  the  familiar  cast 
of  countenance  and  feature  that  marked  their  country  folk 
and  relatives  at  home ;  and  found  that  they  were  simply 
Scandinavians  like  themselves,  who,  having  forgotten  their 
Danish,  spoke  Scotch  instead.  Rather  more  than  a  mile 
to  the  west  of  the  fishing  village  of  Avoch  there  com- 
mences a  Celtic  district,  which  stretches  on  from  Munlochy 
to  the  river  Nairne ;  beyond  which  the  Scandinavian  and 
Teutonic-Scandinavian  border  that  fringes  the  eastern 
coast  of  Scotland  extends  unbroken  southwards  through 
Moray,  Banff,  and  Aberdeen,  on  to  Forfar,  Fife,  the 
Lothians,  and  the  Mearns.  These  two  intercalated  patches 
of  Celtic  people  in  the  northern  tract,  —  that  extending 
from  the  Ord  Hill  to  the  Cromarty  Frith,  and  that  extend- 
ing from  the  Bay  of  Munlochy  to  the  Nairne,  —  still 
retaining,  as  they  do,  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  a  sharp  dis- 
tinctness of  boundary  in  respect  of  language,  character, 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  445 

and  personal  appearance,  are  surely  great  curiosities.  The 
writer  of  these  chapters  was  born  on  the  extreme  edge  of 
one  of  these  patches,  scarce  a  mile  distant  from  a  Gaelic- 
speaking  population ;  and  yet,  though  his  humble  ancestors 
were  located  on  the  spot  for  centuries,  he  can  find  trace 
among  them  of  but  one  Celtic  name ;  and  their  language 
was  exclusively  the  Lowland  Scotch.  For  many  ages  the 
two  races,  like  oil  and  water,  refused  to  mix. 

I  spent  the  evening  very  agreeably  with  one  of  the  Free 
Church  elders  of  the  place,  Mr.  George  Petrie,  an  accom- 
plished antiquary;  and  found  that  his  love  of  the  antique, 
joined  to  an  official  connection  with  the  county,  had  cast 
into  his  keeping  a  number  of  curious  old  papers  of  the 
sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries,  —  not  in 
the  least  connected,  some  of  them,  with  the  legal  and  civic 
records  of  the  place,  but  which  had  somehow  stuck  around 
these,  in  their  course  of  transmission  from  one  age  to 
another,  as  a  float  of  brushwood  in  a  river  occasionally 
brings  down  along  with  it,  entangled  in  its  folds,  uprooted 
plants  and  aquatic  weeds,  that  would  otherwise  have  dis- 
appeared in  the  cataracts  and  eddies  of  the  tipper  reaches 
of  the  stream.  Dead  as  they  seemed,  spotted  with  mil- 
dew, and  fretted  by  the  moth,  I  found  them  curiously 
charged  with  what  had  once  been  intellect  and  emotion, 
hopes  and  fears,  stern  business  and  light  amusement.  I 
saw,  among  the  other  manuscripts,  a  thin  slip  of  a  book, 
filled  with  jottings,  in  the  antique  squai-e-headed  style  of 
notation,  of  old  Scotch  tunes,  apparently  the  work  of 
some  musical  county-clerk  of  Orkney  in  the  seventeenth 
century ;  but  the  papei*,  in  a  miserable  state  of  decay,  was 
blotted  crimson  and  yellow  with  the  rotting  damps,  and 
the  ink  so  faded,  that  the  notation  of  scarce  any  single 
piece  in  the  collection  seemed  legible  throughout.  Less 
valuable  and  more  modern,  though  curious  from  their 

38 


440  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

eccentricity,  there  lay,  in  company  with  the  music,  several 
pieces  of  verse,  addressed  by  some  Orcadian  Claud  Halcro 
of  the  last  age,  to  some  local  patron,  in  a  vein  of  compli- 
ment  rich   and  stiff  as  a  piece   of  ancient  brocade.     A 
peremptory   letter,   bearing  the   autograph   signature    of 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  to  Torquil  M'Leod  of  Dunvegan, 
who  had  been  on  the  eve,  it  would  seem,  of  marrying  a 
daughter  of  Donald  of  the  Isles,  gave  the  Skye  chieftain 
"  to  wit "  that,  as  he  was  of  the  blood  royal  of  Scotland, 
he  could  form  no  matrimonial  alliance  without  the  royal 
permission,  —  a  permission  which,  in  the  case  in  point,  was 
not  to  be  granted.     It  served  to  show  that  the  woman  who 
so  ill  liked  to  be  thwarted  in  her  own  amours  could,  in  her 
character  as  the  Queen,  deal  despotically  enough  with  the 
love  affairs  of  other  people.     Side  by  side  with  the  letter 
of  Mary  there  were  several  not  less  peremptory  documents 
of   the   times   of  the    Commonwealth,  addressed   to   the 
Sheriff  of  Orkney  and  Shetland,  in  the  name  of  his  High- 
ness the  Lord  Protector,  and  that  bore  the  signature  of 
George  Monck.     I  found  them  to  consist  chiefly  of  dun-, 
ning  letters,  —  such  letters  as  those  duns  write  who  have 
victorious  armies  at  their  back, — for  large  sums  of  money, 
the  assessments  laid  on  the  Orkneys  by  Cromwell.     An- 
other series  of  letters,  some  ten  or  twelve  years  later  in 
their  date,  form  portions  of  the  history  of  a  worthy  cov- 
enanting minister,  the  Rev.  Alexander  Smith  of  Colvine, 
banished  to  North  Ronaldshay  from  the  extreme  south  of 
Scotland,  for  the  offence  of  preaching  the  gospel,  and  hold- 
ing meetings  for  social  worship  in  his  own  house ;  and,  as 
if  to  demonstrate  his  incorrigibility,  one  of  the  series,  —  a 
letter  under  his  own  hand,  addressed  from  his  island  prison 
to  the  Sheriff-Depute  in  Kirkwall,  —  showed  him  as  deter- 
mined and  persevering  in  the   offence  as  ever.     It  was 
written  immediately  after  his  arrival.     "  The  poor  inhabi- 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  447 

tants,"  says  the  writer,  "  so  many  as  I  have  yet  seen,  have 
received  me  with  much  joy.  1  intend,  if  the  Lord  will,  to 
preach  Christ  to  them  next  Lord's  day,  wt.out  the  least 
mixture  of  anything  that  may  smell  of  sedition  or  rebel- 
lion. If  I  be  farther  troubled  for  yt,  I  resolve  to  suffer 
with  meekness  and  patience."  The  Galloway  minister 
must  have  been  an  honest  man.  Deeming  preaching  his 
true  vocation,  —  a  vocation  from  the  exercise  of  which  he 
dai'ed  not  cease,  lest  he  should  render  himself  obnoxious 
to  the  woe  referred  to  by  the  apostle,  —  he  yet  could  not 
steal  a  march  on  even  the  Sheriff,  whose  professional  duty 
it  was  to  prevent  him  from  doing  his  ;  and  so  he  fairly 
warned  him  that  he  purposed  breaking  the  law.  The  next 
set  of  papers  in  the  collection  dated  after  the  Revolution, 
and  were  full  charged  with  an  enthusiastic  Jacobitisin, 
which  seems  to  have  been  a  prevalent  sentiment  in  Ork- 
ney from  the  death  of  Queen  Anne,  until  the  disastrous  de- 
feat at  Culloden  quenched  in  blood  the  hopes  of  the  party. 
There  is  a  deep  cave  still  shown  on  the  shores  of  Wcstray, 
within  sight  of  the  forlorn  Patmos  of  the  poor  Cov- 
enanter, in  which,  when  the  sun  got  on  the  Whig  side  of 
the  hedge,  twelve  gentlemen,  who  had  been  engaged  in 
the  rebellion  of  1745,  concealed  themselves  for  a  whole 
winter.  So  perseveringly  were  they  sought  after,  that 
during  the  whole  time  they  dared  not  once  light  a  fire, 
nor  attempt  fishing  from  the  rocks  to  supply  themselves 
with  food;  and,  though  they  escaped  the  search,  they 
never,  it  is  said,  completely  recovered  the  horrors  of  their 
term  of  dreary  seclusion,  but  bore  about  with  them,  in 
broken  constitutions,  the  effects  of  the  hardships  to  which 
they  had  been  subjected.  They  must  have  had  full  time 
and  opportunity  during  that  miserable  winter,  for  testing 
the  justice  of  the  policy  that  had  sent  poor  Smith  into 
exile,  from  his  snug  southern  parish  in  the  Presbytery  of 


448  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

Dumfries,  to  the  remotest  island  of  the  Orkneys.  The 
great  lesson  taught  in  Providence  during  the  seventeenth 
and  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  our  Scottish  coun- 
tryfolk seems  to  have  been  the  lesson  of  toleration ;  and 
as  they  were  slow,  stubborn  scholars,  the  lash  was  very 
frequently  and  very  severely  applied.  One  of  the  Jacobite 
papers  of  Mr.  Petrie's  collection,  —  a  triumphal  poem  on 
the  victory  of  Gladsmuir,  —  which,  if  less  poetical  than  the 
Ode  of  Hamilton  of  Bangonr  on  the  same  subject,  is  in  no 
degree  less  curious,  —  serves  to  throw  very  decided  light 
on  a  passage  in  literary  history  which  puzzled  Dr.  Johnson, 
and  which  scarce  any  one  would  think  of  going  to  Ork- 
ney to  settle. 

Johnson  states,  in  his  Life  of  the  poet  Thomson,  that 
the  "  first  operation  "  of  the  act  passed  in  1739  "  for  licens- 
ing plays "  was  the  "  prohibition  of  '  Gustavus  Vasa,'  a 
tragedy  of  Mr.  Brook."  "  Why  such  a  work  should  be 
obstructed,"  he  adds,  "  it  is  hard  to  discover."  We  learn 
elsewhere,  —  from  the  compiler  of  the  "  Modern  Univer- 
sal History,"  if  I  remember  aright,  —  that  "  so  popular  did 
the  prohibitory  order  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  render  the 
play,"  that,  "  on  its  publication  the  same  yeai-,  not  less  than 
a  thousand  pounds  were  the  clear  produce."  It  was  not, 
however,  until  more  than  sixty  years  after,  when  both 
Johnson  and  Brook  were  in  their  graves,  that  it  was 
deemed  safe  to  license  it  for  the  stage.  Now,  the  fact 
that  a  drama,  in  itself  as  little  dangerous  as  "  Cato  "  or 
"Douglas,"  should  have  been  prohibited  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day,  in  the  first  instance,  and  should  have 
brought  the  author,  on  its  publication,  so  large  a  sum  in  the 
second,  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  a  reference  to  the 
keen  partisanship  of  the  period,  and  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  parties.  The  Jacobites,  taught  by  the  rebellion  of 
1715  at  once  the  value  of  the  Highlands  and  the  incompe- 


RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST.  449 

tency  of  the  Chevalier  St.  George  as  a  leader,  had  begun  to 
fix  their  hopes  on  the  Chevalier's  son,  Charles  Edward,  at 
that  time  a  young  but  promising  lad  ;  and,  with  the  tragedy 
of  Brook  before  them,  neither  they,  nor  the  English  Gov- 
ernment of  the  day  could  have  failed  to  see  the  foreigner 
George  the  Second  typified  —  unintentionally,  surely,  oil 
the  part  of  Brook,  who  was  a  "  Prince  of  Wales  "  Whig 
—  in  the  foreigner  Christiern  the  Second,  the  Scotch 
Highlanders  in  the  Mountaineers  of  Dalecarlia,  and  the 
young  Prince  in  Gustavus.  In  the  Jacobite  manuscript  of 
Mr.  Petrie's  collection,  the  parallelism  is  broadly  traced  ; 
nor  is  it  in  the  least  probable,  as  the  poem  is  a  piece  of  sad 
mediocrity  throughout,  that  it  is  a  parallelism  which  was 
originated  by  its  writer.  It  must  have  been  that  of  his 
party ;  and  led,  I  doubt  not,  five  years  before,  to  the  pro- 
hibition of  Brook's  tragedy,  and  to  the  singular  success 
which  attended  its  publication.  The  passage  in  the  man- 
uscript suggestive  of  this  view  takes  the  form  of  an  ad- 
dress to  the  victorious  prince,  and  runs  as  follows :  — 

"  Meanwhile,  unguarded  youth,  tliou  stoodst  alone; 
The  cruel  Tyrant  urged  his  Armie  on; 
But  Truth  and  Goodness  were  the  Best  of  Arms; 
And,  fearless  Prince,  Thou  smil'd  at  Threatened  harms. 
Thus,  Glorious  Vasa  worked  in  Swedish  mines,  — 
Thus,  Helpless,  Saw  his  Enemy's  Designs, — 
Till,  roused,  his  Hardy  Highlanders  arose, 
And  poured  Destruction  on  their  foreign  foes.' 

I  rose  betimes  next  morning,  and  crossed  the  Peerie 
[little]  Sea,  a  shallow  prolongation  of  the  Bay  of  Kirk- 
wall,  cut  oflf  from  the  main  sea  by  an  artificial  mound,  to 
the  quarry  of  Pickoquoy,  somewhat  notable,  only  a  few 
years  ago,  as  the  sole  locality  in  which  shells  had  been 
detected  in  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  of  Scotland.  But 
these  have  since  been  found  in  the  neighborhood  of 
38* 


450  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

Thurso,  by  Mr.  Robert  Dick,  .associated  with  bones  and 
plates  of  the  Asterolepis,  and  by  Mr.  William  Watt  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  Mainland  of  Orkney,  at  Manvick 
Head.  So  far  as  has  yet  been  ascertained,  they  are  all  of 
one  species,  and  more  nearly  resemble  a  small  Cyclas  than 
any  other  shell.  They  are,  however,  more  deeply  sulcated 
in  concentric  lines,  drawn,  as  if  by  a  pair  of  compasses, 
from  the  umbone,  and  somewhat  resembling  those  of  the 
genus  Astaite,  than  any  species  of  Cyclas  with  which  I  am 
acquainted.  In  all  the  specimens  I  have  yet  seen,  it 
appears  to  be  rather  a  thick  dai'k  epidermis  that  survives, 
than  the  shell  which  it  covered ;  nay,  it  seems  not  impos- 
sible that  to  its  thick  epidermis,  originally  an  essentially 
different  substance  from  that  which  composed  the  calcare- 
ous case,  the  shell  may  have  owed  its  preservation  as  a  fos- 
sil; while  other  shells,  its  contemporaries,  from  the  cir- 
cumstance of  their  having  been  unfurnished  with  any  such 
covering,  may  have  failed  to  leave  any  trace  of  their  exist- 
ence behind  them.  It  seems  at  least  difficult  to  conceive 
of  a  sea  inhabited  by  many  genera  of  fishes,  each  divided 
into  several  species,  and  yet  furnished  with  but  one  species 
of  shell.  I  found  the  quarry  of  Pi ckoquoy,  —  a  deep  exca- 
vation only  a  few  yards  beyond  the  high-water  mark,  and 
some  two  or  three  yards  under  the  high-water  level, — 
deserted  by  the  quanymen,  and  filled  to  the  brim  by  the 
overflowing  of  a  small  stream.  I  succeeded,  however,  in 
detecting  its  shells  in  situ.  They  seem  restricted  chiefly 
to  a  single  stratum,  scarcely  half  an  inch  in  thickness,  and 
lie,  not  thinly  scattered  over  the  platform  which  they 
occupy,  but  impinging  on  each  other,  like  all  the  gregari- 
ous shells,  in  thickly-set  groups  and  clusters.  There 
occur  among  them  occasional  scales  of  Dipteri ;  and  on 
some  of  the  fragments  of  rock  long  exposed  around  the 
quarry-mouth  to  the  weather  I  found  them  assuming  a 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  451 

pale  nacreous  gloss,  —  an  effect,  it  is  not  improbable,  of 
their  still  retaining,  attached  to  the  epidermis,  a  thin  film 
of  the  original  shell.  The  world's  history  must  be  vastly 
more  voluminous  now,  and  greatly  more  varied  in  its  con- 
tents, than  when  the  stratum  which  they  occupy  formed 
the  upper  layer  of  a  muddy  sea-bottom,  and  they  opened 
their  valves  by  myriads,  to  prey  on  the  organic  atoms 
which  formed  their  food,  or  shut  them  again,  startled  by 
the  shadow  of  the  Dipterus,  as  he  descended  from  the 
upper  depths  of  the  water  to  prey  upon  them  in  turn. 
The  palate  of  this  ancient  ganoid  is  furnished  with  a  curi- 
ous dental  apparatus,  formed  apparenly,  like  that  of  the 
recent  wolf-fish,  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  shells. 

About  mid-day  I  set  out  by  the  mail-gig  for  Stromness. 
For  the  first  few  miles  the  road  winds  through  a  bare  soli- 
tary valley,  overlooked  by  ungainly  heath-covered  hills  of 
no  great  altitude,  though  quite  tall  enough  to  prevent  the 
traveller  from  seeing  anything  but  themselves.  As  he 
passes  on,  the  valley  opens  in  front  on  an  arm  of  the  sea, 
over  which  the  range  of  hills  on  the  right  abruptly  termi- 
nates, while  that  on  the  left  deflects  into  a  line  nearly  par- 
allel to  the  shore,  leaving  a  comparatively  level  strip  of 
moory  land,  rather  more  than  a  mile  in  breadth,  between 
the  steeper  acclivities  and  the  beach.  A  tall  naked  house 
rises  between  the  road  and  the  sea.  Two  low  islands 
immediately  behind  it,  only  a  few  acres  in  extent,  —  one 
of  them  bearing  a  small  ruin  on  its  apex,  —  give  a  little 
variety  to  the  central  point  in  the  prospect  which  the 
naked  house  forms ;  but  the  arm  of  the  sea,  bordered,  at 
the  time  I  passed,  by  a  broad  brown  selvage  of  sea-weed, 
is  as  tame  and  flat  as  a  Dutch  lake;  the  back-ground 
beyond,  a  long  monotonous  ridge,  is  bare  and  treeless; 
and  in  front  liesj:he  brown  moory  plain,  bordered  by  the 
dull  line  of  hills  and  darkened  by  scattered  stacks  of  peat. 


452  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

The  scene  is  not  at  all  such  .1  one  as  a  poet  would,  for  its 
own  sake,  delight  to  fancy ;  and  yet,  in  the  recollection  of 
at  least  one  very  pleasing  poet,  its  hills,  and  islands,  and 
blue  arm  of  the  sea,  its  brown  moory  plain,  and  tall  naked 
house  rising  in  the  midst,  must  have  been  surrounded  by 
a  sunlit  atmosphere  of  love  and  desire,  bright  enough  to 
impart  to  even  its  tamest  features  a  glow  of  exquisiteness 
and  beauty.  Malcolm  the  poet  was  born,  and  spent  his 
years  of  boyhood  and  early  youth,  in  the  tall  naked  house; 
and  the  surrounding  landscape  is  that  to  which  he  refers 
in  his  "  Tales  of  Flood  and  Field."  as  rising  in  imagination 
before  him,  bright  in  the  red  gleam  of  the  setting  sun, 
when,  on  the  steep  slopes  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  "silent 
stars  of  night  were  twinkling  high  over  his  head,"  and  the 
"tents  "of  the  soldiery  glimmering  pale  through  the  gloom." 
The  tall  house  is  the  manse  of  the  parish  of  Frith  and 
Stennis ;  and  the  poet  was  the  son  of  the  Rev.  John  Mal- 
colm, its  minister.  Here,  when  yet  a  mere  lad,  dreaming, 
in  the  quiet  obscurity  of  an  Orkney  parish,  far  removed 
from  the  seat  of  war  and  the  literary  circles,  of  poetic  cel- 
ebrity and  military  renown,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Kent,  the  father  of  our  Sovereign  Lady  the  reign- 
ing Monarch,  expressing  an  ardent  wish  to  obtain  a  com- 
mission in  the  army  then  engaged  in  the  Peninsula.  The 
letter  was  such  as  to  excite  the  interest  of  his  Royal  High- 
ness, who  replied  to  it  by  return  of  post,  requesting  the 
writer  to  proceed  forthwith  to  London;  for  which  he 
immediately  set  out,  and  was  received  by  the  Duke  with 
courtf sy  and  kindness.  He  was  instructed  by  him  to  take 
ship  for  Spain,  in  Avhich  he  arrived  as  volunteer;  and,  join- 
ing the  army,  engaged  at  the  time  in  the  siege  of  St. 
Sebastian,  under  General  Graham,  he  was  promoted  shortly 
after,  through  the  influence  of  his  generous  patron,  to  a 
lieutenancy  in  the  42 d  Highlanders.  He  served  in  that 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  453 

distinguished  regiment  on  to  the  closing  campaign  of  the 
Pyrenees ;  but  received  at  the  battle  of  Toulouse  a  wound 
so  severe  as  to  render  him  ever  after  incapable  of  active 
bodily  exertion ;  and  so  he  had  to  retire  from  the  army  on 
half-pay,  and  a  pension  honorably  earned.  The  history  of 
his  career  as  a  soldier  he  has  told  with  singular  interest,  in 
one  of  the  earlier  volumes  of  "  Constable's  Miscellany ; " 
and  his  poems  abound  in  snatches  of  description  painfully 
true,  drawn  from  his  experience  of  the  military  life,  —  of 
scenes  of  stern  misery  and  grim  desolation,  of  injuries 
received,  and  of  sufferings  inflicted,  —  that  must  have  con- 
t  rusted  sadly  in  his  mind,  in  their  character  as  gross  reali- 
ties, Avith  the  dreamy  visions  of  conquest  and  glory  in 
which  he  had  indulged  at  an  earlier  time.  The  ruin  of 
St.  Sebastian,  complete  enough,  and  attended  with  circum- 
stances of  the  horrible  extreme  enough,  to  appal  men  long 
acquainted  with  the  trade  of  war,  must  have  powerfully 
impressed  an  imaginative  susceptible  lad,  fresh  from  the 
domesticities  of  a  rural  manse,  in  whose  quiet  neighbor- 
hood the  voice  of  battle  had  not  been  heard  for  centuries, 
and  surrounded  by  a  simple  people,  remarkable  for  the 
respect  which  they  bear  to  human  life.  In  all  probability, 
the  power  evinced  in  his  description  of  the  siege,  and  of 
the  utter  desolation  in  which  it  terminated,  is  in  part 
owing  to  the  fresh  impressibility  of  his  mind  at  the  time. 
Such,  at  least,  was  my  feeling  regarding  it,  as  I  caught 
myself  muttering  some  of  its  more  graphic  passages,  and 
sa\v,  from  the  degree  of  alarm  evinced  by  the  boy  who 
drove  the  mail-gig,  that  the  sounds  were  not  quite  lost  in 
the  rattle  of  that  somewhat  rickety  vehicle,  and  that  he 
had  come  to  entertain  serious  doubts  respecting  the  sanity 
of  his  passenger :  — 

"  Sebastian,  when  I  saw  thee  last, 
It  was  in  Desolation's  day, 


454  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

As  through  thy  voiceless  streets  I  passed, 

Thy  piles  in  heaps  of  rubbish  lay; 
The  roofless  fragments  of  each  wall 
Bore  many  a  dent  of  shell  and  ball; 
With  blood  were  all  thy  gateways  red, 
And  thou,  —  a  city  of  the  dead ! 

With  fire  and  sword  thy  walks  were  swept: 
Exploded  mines  thy  streets  had  heaped 
In  hills  of  rubbish;  they  had  been 
Traversed  by  gabion  and  fascine, 
With  cannon  lowering  in  the  rear 
In  dark  array,  —  a  deadly  tier,  — 
Whose  thunder-clouds,  with  fiery  breath, 
Sent  far  around  their  iron  death ; 
The  bursting  shell,  in  fragments  flung 
Athwart  the  skies,  at  midnight  sung, 
Or,  on  its  airy  pathway  sent, 
Its  meteors  sweep  the  firmament. 
Thy  castle,  towering  o'er  the  shore, 
Reeled  on  its  rock  amidst  the  roar 
Of  thousand  thunders,  for  it  stood 
In  circle  of  a  fiery  flood; 
And  crumbling  masses  fiercely  sent 
From  its  high  frowning  battlement, 
Smote  by  the  shot  and  whistling  shell, 
With  groan  and  crash  in  ruin  fell. 

Through  desert  streets  the  mourner  passed, 
Midst  walls  that  spectral  shadows  cast, 
Like  some  fair  spirit  wailing  o'er 
The  fatlcd  scenes  it  loved  of  yore ; 
No  human  voice  was  heard  to  bless 
That  place  of  waste  and  loneliness. 

I  saw  at  eve  the  night-bird  fly, 
And  vulture  dimly  flitting  by, 
To  revel  o'er  each  morsel  stolen 
From  the  cold  corse,  all  black  and  swoln 
That  on  the  shattered  ramparts  lay, 
Of  him  who  perished  yesterday,  — 
Of  him  whose  pestilential  steam 
Rose  reeking  on  the  morning  beam,  — 
Whose  fearful  fragments,  nearly  gone, 
Were  blackening  from  the  bleaching  bone. 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  455 

The  house-dog  bounded  o'er  each  scene 
Where  cisterns  had  so  lately  been  : 
Away  in  frantic  haste  he  sprung, 
And  sought  to  cool  his  burning  tongue. 
He  howled,  and  to  his  famished  cry 
The  dreary  echoes  gave  reply; 
And  owlet's  dirge,  through  shadows  dim, 
Rolled  back  in  sad  response  to  him." 
t 

The  father  was  succeeded  in  his  parish  by  the  brother  of 
Malcolm,  —  a  gentleman  to  whom,  during  my  stay  in  Ork- 
ney, I  took  the  liberty  of  introducing  myself  in  his  snug 
little  Free  Church  manse  at  the  head  of  the  bay,  and  in 
whose  possession  I  found  the  only  portrait  of  the  poet  which 
exists.  It  is  that  of  a  handsome  and  interesting  looking 
young  man,  though  taken  not  many  years  before  his  death ; 
for,  like  the  greater  number  of  his  class,  he  did  not  live  to 
be  an  old  one,  dying  under  forty.  His  brother  the  clergy- 
man kindly  accompanied  me  to  two  quarries  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  his  new  domicil,  which  I  found,  like  almost  all 
the  dry-stone  fences  of  the  district,  speckled  with  scales, 
occipital  plates,  and  gill-covers,  of  Osteolepides  and  Dipteri, 
but  containing  no  entire  ichthyolites.  He  had  taken  his 
side  in  the  Church  controversy,  he  told  me,  firmly,  but 
quietly;  and  when  the  Disruption  came,  and  he  found  it 
necessary  to  quit  the  old  manse,  which  had  been  a  home  to 
his  family  for  well  nigh  two  generations,  and  in  which  both 
he  and  his  brother  had  been  born,  he  scarce  knew  what  his 
people  were  to  do,  nor  in  what  proportion  he  was  to  have 
followers  among  them.  Somewhat  to  his  surprise,  however, 
they  came  out  with  him  almost  to  a  man ;  so  that  his  suc- 
cessor in  the  parish  church  had  sometimes,  he  understood, 
to  preach  to  congregations  scarcely  exceeding  half  a  dozen. 
I  had  learned  elsewhere  how  thoroughly  Mr.  Malcolm  was 
loved  and  respected  by  his  parishioners ;  and  that  uncon- 
sciousness on  his  own  part  of  the  strength  of  their  affection 


456  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

and  esteem,  which  his  statement  evinced,  formed,  I  thought, 
a  very  pleasing  trait,  and  one  that  harmonized  well  with  the 
finely-toned  unobtrusiveness  and  unconscious  elegance  which 
characterized  the  genius  of  his  deceased  brother.  A  little 
beyond  the  Free  Church  manse  the  road  ascends  between 
stone  walls,  abounding  in  fragments  of  ich  thy  elites,  weath- 
ered blue  by  exposure  to  the  sun  and  wind ;  and  the  top  of 
the  eminence  forms  the  water-shed  in  this  part  of  the  Main- 
land, and  introduces  the  traveller  to  a  scene  entirely  new. 
The  prospect  is  of  considerable  extent ;  and,  what  seems 
strange  in  Orkney,  nowhere  pi-esents  the  traveller,  —  though 
it  contains  its  large  inland  lake,  —  with  a  glimpse  of  the  sea. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Hills  of  Orkney  —  Their  Geologic  Composition  —  Scene  of  Scott's  "Pirate"  — 
Stromness  —  Geology  of  the  District  —  "  Seeking  beasts"  —  Conglomerate  in 
contact  with  Granite  —  A  palaeozoic  Hudson's  Bay  —  Thickness  of  Conglom- 
erate of  Orkney  —  Oldest  Vertebrate  yet  discovered  in  Orkney  —  Its  Size  — 
Figure  of  a  characteristic  plate  of  the  Asterolepis  —  Peculiarity  of  Old  Red 
Fishes  —  Length  of  the  Asterolepis  —  A  rich  Ichthyolite  Bed  —  Arrangement 
of  the  Layers  —  Queries  as  to  the  Cause  of  it  —  Minerals  —  An  abandoned 
Mine  —  A  lost  Vessel  —  Kelp  for  Iodine  —  A  dangerous  Coast  —  Incidents  of 
Shipwreck  —  Hospitality  —  Stromness  Museum  —  Diplopterus  mistaken  for 
Dipterus  —  Their  Resemblances  and  Differences  —  Visit  to  a  remarkable  Stack 
—  Paring  the  Soil  for  Fuel,  and  consequent  Barrenness  —  Description  of  the 
Stack  —  Wave-formed  Caves  —  Height  to  which  the  Surf  rises. 

THE  Orkneys,  like  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  exhibit  their 
higher  hills  and  precipices  on  their  western  coasts:  the 
Ward  Hill  of  Hoy  attains  to  an  elevation  of  sixteen  hun- 
dred feet;  and  there  are  some  of  the  precipices  which  skirt 
the  island  of  which  it  forms  so  conspicuous  a  feature,  that 
rise  sheer  over  the  breakers  from  eight  hundred  to  a  thou- 
sand. Unlike,  however,  the  arrangement  on  the  mainland, 
it  is  the  newer  rocks  that  attain  to  the  higher  elevations ; 
the  heights  of  Hoy  are  composed  of  that  arenaceous  upper 
member  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone,  —  the  last  formed 
of  the  Palaeozoic  deposits  of  Orkney,  —  which  overlies  the 
ichthyolitic  flagstones  and  shales  of  Caithness  at  Dunnet 
Head,  and  the  ichthyolitic  nodular  beds  of  Inverness,  Ross, 
and  Cromarty,  at  Culloden,  Tarbet  Ness,  within  the  North- 
ern Sutor,  and  along  the  bleak  ridge  of  the  Maolbuie.  It 
is  simply  a  tall  upper  story  of  the  formation,  erected  along 
the  western  line  of  coast  in  the  Orkneys,  which  the  eastern 
line  wholly  wants.  Its  screen  of  hills  forms  a  noble  back- 

39 


458  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

ground  to  the  prospect  which  opens  on  the  traveller  as  ho 
ascends  the  eminence  beyond  the  Free  Chui-ch  rnanse  of 
Frith  and  Stennis.  A  large  lake,  bare  and  treeless,  like  all 
the  other  lakes  and  lochs  of  Orkney,  but  picturesque  of  out- 
line, and  divided  into  an  upper  and  lower  sheet  of  water  by 
two  low,  long  promontories,  that  jut  out  from  opposite 
sides,  and  so  nearly  meet  as  to  be  connected  by  a  thread- 
like line  of  road,  half  mound,  half  bridge,  occupies  the 
middle  distance.  There  are  moory  hills  and  a  few  cottages 
in  front ;  and  on  the  promontories,  conspicuous  in  the  land- 
scape, from  the  relief  furnished  by  the  blue  ground  of  the 
surrounding  waters,  stand  the  tall'stones  of  Stennis,  —  one 
group  on  the  northern  promontory,  the  other  on  the  south. 
A  gray  old-fashioned  house,  of  no  very  imposing  appear- 
ance, rises  between  the  road  and  the  lake.  It  is  the  house 
of  Stennis,  or  Turmister,  in  which  Scott  places  some  of  the 
concluding  scenes  of  the  "  Pirate,"  and  from  which  he 
makes  Cleveland  anfl  his  fantastic  admirer  Jack  Bunco  wit- 
ness the  final  engagement,  in  the  bay  of  Stromness,  between 
the  Halcyon  sloop  of  war  and  the  savage  Goffe.  Xor  does 
it  matter  anything  that  neither  sea  nor  vessels  can  be  seen 
from  the  house  of  Turmister :  the  fact  which  would  be  so 
fatal  to  a  dishonest  historian  tells  with  no  effect  against  the 
honest  "maker,"  responsible  for  but  the  management  of 
his  tale. 

I  got  on  to  Stromness ;  and  finding,  after  making  myself 
comfortable  in  my  inn,  that  I  had  a  fine  bright  evening  still 
before  me,  longer  by  some  three  or  four  degrees  of  north 
latitude  than  the  July  evenings  of  Edinburgh,  I  set  out, 
hammer  in  hand,  to  explore.  Stromness  is  a  long,  narrow, 
irregular  strip  of  a  town,  fairly  thrust  by  a  steep  hill  into 
the  sea,  on  which  it  encroaches  in  a  broken  line  of  wharf-like 
bulwarks,  along  which,  at  high  water,  vessels  of  a  hundred 
tons  burden  float  so  immediately  beside  the  houses,  that 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  459 

their  pennants  on  gala  days  wave  over  the  chimney  tops. 
The  steep  hill  forms  part  of  a  granitic  axis,  about  six  miles 
in  length  by  a  mile  in  breadth,  which  forms  the  backbone 
of  the  district,  and  against  which  the  Great  Conglomerate 

7  o  O 

and  lower  schists  of  the  Old  Red  are  upturned  at  a  rather 
high  angle.  It  is  wrapped  round  in  some  places  by  a  thin 
caul  of  the  stratified  primary  rocks.  Immediately  over  the 
town,  on  the  brow  of  the  eminence,  where  the  granitic  axis 
had  been  laid  bare  in  digging  a  foundation  for  the  Free 
Church  manse,  I  saw  numerous  masses  of  schistose-gneiss, 
passing  in  some  of  the  beds  into  a  coarse-grained  mica- 
schist,  and  a  lustrous  hornblendic  slate,  that  had  been  quar- 
ried from  over  it,  and  which  may  be  still  seen  built  up  into 
the  garden-wall  of  the  erection.  I  walked  out  towards  the 
west,  to  examine  the  junction  of  the  granite  and  the  Great 
Conglomerate,  where  it  is  laid  bare  by  the  sea,  little  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  outside  the  town.  There  was  a 
horde  of  noisy  urchins  a  little  beyond  the  inn,  who,  having 
seen  me  alight  from  the  mail-gig,  had  determined  in  their 
own  minds  that  I  was  engaged  in  the  political  canvass  going 
forward  at  the  time,  but  had  not  quite  ascertained  my  side. 
They  now  divided  into  two  parties ;  and  when  the  one,  as  I 
passed,  set  up  a  "  Hurra  for  Dundas,"  the  other  met  them 
from  the  opposite  side  of  the  street,  with  a  counter  cry  of 
"  Anderson  forever."  Immediately  after  clearing  the  houses, 
I  was  accosted  by  a  man  from  the  country.  "  Ye  '11  be 
seeking  beasts,"  he  said :  "  what  price  are  cattle  gi'en  the 
noo  ?"  "  Yes,  seeking  beasts^1  I  replied,  "  but  very  old 
ones :  I  have  come  to  hammer  your  rocks  for  petrified 
fish."  "  I  see,  I  see,"  said  the  man ;  "  I  took  ye  by  ye'er 
gray  plaid  for  a  drover;  but  I  ken  something  about  the 
stane  fish  too ;  there  's  lots  o'  them  in  the  quarries  at  Skaill." 
I  found  the  great  Conglomerate  in  immediate  contact 
with  the  granite,  which  is  a  ternary  of  the  usual  com- 


460  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

ponents,  somewhat  intermediate  in  color  between  that  of 
Peterhead  and  Aberdeen,  and  which  at  this  point  bears 
none  of  the  caul  of  stratified  primary  rock  by  which  it  is 
overlaid  on  the  brow  of  the  hill.  When  the  great  Con- 
glomerate, which  is  mainly  composed  of  it  here,  was  in  the 
act  of  forming,  this  granite  must  have  been  one  of  the  sur- 
face rocks  of  the  locality,  and  in  no  respect  a  different  stone 
.from  what  it  is  now.  The  widely-spread  Conglomerate 
base  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone,  which  presents,  over  an 
area  of  so  many  thousand  square  miles,  such  an  identity  of 
character,  that  specimens  taken  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Lerwick,  in  Shetland,  can  scarce  be  distinguished  from 
specimens  detached  from  the  hills  which  rise  over  the  great 
Caledonian  Valley,  contains  in  various  places,  as  under  the 
Northern  Sutor,  for  instance,  and  along  the  shores  of  Kav- 
ity,  fragments  of  rock  which  have  not  been  detected  in 
situ  in  the  districts  in  which  they  occur  as  agglomerated 
pebbles.  In  general,  however,  we  find  it  composed  of  the 
debris  of  those  very  granites  and  gneisses  which,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  granitic  axis  here,  were  forced  through  it,  and 
through  the  overlying  deposits,  by  deep-seated  convulsions, 
long  posterior  in  date  to  its  formation.  It  appears  to  have 
been  formed  in  a  vast  oceanic  basin  of  primary  reck,  —  a 
Paleozoic  Hudson's  or  Baffin's  Bay,  —  partially  surrounded, 
mayhap,  by  bare  primary  continents,  swept  by  numerous 
streams,  rapid  and  headlong,  and  charged  with  the  broken 
debris  of  the  inhospitable  regions  which  they  drained. 
The  graptolite-bearing  grauwacke  of  Banffshire  seems  to 
have  been  the  only  fossiliferous  rock  that  occurred  through- 
out the  extent  of  this  ancient  northern  basin.  The  Con- 
glomerate of  Orkney,  like  that  of  Moray  and  Ross,  varies 
from  fifty  to  a  hundred  yards  in  thickness.  It  is  not  over- 
laid in  this  section  by  the  thick  bed  of  coarse-grained  sand- 
stone, so  well-marked  a  member  of  the  formation  at  Cro- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  461 

marty,  Nigg,  and  Gamric,  and  along  the  northern  shores 
of  the  Beauly  Frith ;  but  at  once  passes  into  those  gray 
bituminous  flagstones  so  immensely  developed  in  Caithness 
and  the  Orkneys.  I  traced  the  formation  upwards  this 
evening,  walking  along  the  edges  of  the  upheaved  strata, 
from  where  the  Conglomerate  leans  against  the  granite,  till 
where  it  merges  into  the  gray  flagstones,  and  then  pursued 
the.-:e  from  older  and  lower  to  newer  and  higher  layers, 
anxious  to  ascertain  at  what  distance  over  the  base  the 
more  ancient  organisms  of  the  system  first  appear,  and 
what  their  character  and  kind.  And  little  more  than  a 
hundred  yards  over  the  granite,  and  somewhat  less  than  a 
hundred  feet  over  the  upper  stratum  of  the  great  Con- 
glomerate, I  found  what  I  sought,  —  a  well-marked  bone, 
perhaps  the  oldest  vertebrate  remain  yet  discovered  in  Ork- 
ney, embedded  in  a  light  grayish-colored  layer  of  hard  flag. 
"What,  asks  the  reader,  was  the  character  of  the  ancient 
denizen  of  the  Palaeozoic  basin  of  which  it  had  formed  a 
part  ?  Was  it  a  large  or  small  fish,  or  of  a  high  or  low 
order  ?  Not  certainly  of  a  low  order,  and  by  no  means  of 
a  small  size.  The  organism  in  the  rock  was  a  specimen 
of  that  curious  nail-shaped  bone  of  the  Asterolepis  which 
occurs  as  a  central  ridge  in  the  single  plate  that  occupies  in 
this  genus  the  wide  curve  of  the  under  jaw,  and  as  it  was 
fully  five  inches  in  length  from  head  to  point,  the  plate  to 
which  it  belonged  must  have  measured  ten  inches  across, 
and  the  frontal  occipital  buckler  with  which  it  was  associ- 
ated, one  foot  two  inches  in  length  (not  including  the  three 
accessory  plates  at  the  nape),  by  ten  inches  in  breadth. 
And  if  built,  as  it  probably  was,  in  the  same  massy  propor- 
tions as  its  brother  Ccelacanths  the  Holoptychius  or  Glypto- 
lepis,  the  individual  to  which  the  nail-shaped  bone  belonged 
must  have  been,  judging  from  the  size  of  the  corresponding 
parts  in  these  ichthyolites,  at  least  twice  as  large  an  animal 
39* 


462  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

as  the  splendid  Clashbennie  HoloptycLius  of  the  Upper  Old 
Red,  now  in  the  British  Museum.  The  bulkiest  icthyolites 
yet  found  in  any  of  the  divisions  of  the  Old  Red  system 
are  of  the  genus  Asterolepis ;  and  to  this  genus,  and  to 
evidently  an  individual  of  no  inconsiderable  size,  this  oldest 
of  the  organisms  of  the  Orkney  belonged.  I  was  so  inter- 
ested in  the  fact,  that  before  leaving  this  part  of  the  coun- 
try, I  brought  Dr.  Garson,  Stromness,  and  Mr.  William 
Watt,  jun.,  Skaill,  both  very  intelligent  paleontologists,  to 
mark  the  place  and  character  of  the  fossil,  that  they  might 
be  able  to  point  it  out  to  geological  visitors  in  the  future, 
or,  if  they  preferred  removing  it  to  their  town  Museum,  to 
indicate  to  them  the  stratum  in  which  it  had  lain.  For  the 
present,  I  merely  request  the  reader  to  mark,  in  the  pass- 
ing, that  the  most  ancient  organic  remain  yet  found  in  the 
Old  Red  of  this  part  of  the  country,  nay,  judging  from  its 
place,  one  of  the  most  ancient  yet  found  in  Scotland,  —  so 
far  as  I  know,  absolutely  the  most  ancient,  —  belonged  to  a 
ganoid  as  bulky  as  a  large  porpoise,  and  which,  as  shown 
by  its  teeth  and  jaws,  possessed  that  peculiar  organization 
which  characterized  the  reptile  fish  of  the  Upper  Devonian 
and  Carboniferous  periods.  As  there  are,  however,  no 
calculations  more  doubtful  or  more  to  be  suspected  than 
those  on  which  the  size  and  bulk  of  the  extinct  animals  are 
determined  from  some  surviving  fragment  of  their  remains, 

—  plate  or  bone,  —  I  must  at- 
tempt laying  before  the  scien- 
tific reader  at  least  a  portion 
of  the  data  on  which  I  found. 
This  figure  represents  not 
inadequately  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  plates  of  the  Asterolepis.  A  very  consider- 
able fragment  of  what  seems  to  be  the  same  plate  has  been 
figured  by  Agassiz  from  a  cast  of  one  of  the  huge  specimens 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  463 

of  Professor  Asmus  ("Old  Red,"  Table  32,  Fig.  13) ;  but 
as  no  evidence  regarding  its  true  place  had  turned  up  at 
the  time  it  was  supposed  by  the  naturalist  to  form  part  of 
the  opercular  covering  of  the  animal.  It  belonged,  however, 
to  a  different  portion  of  the  head.  In  almost  all  the  fish 
that  appear  at  our  tables  the  space  which  occurs  within  the 
arched  sweep  of  the  lower  jaws  is  mainly  occupied  by  a 
complicated  osseous  mechanism,  known  to  anatomists  as 
the  hyoid  bone  and  branchiostegous  rays ;  and  which  serves 
both  to  support  the  branchial  arches  and  the  branchios- 
tegous membrane.  Now,  in  the  fish  of  the  Old  Red  Sand- 
stone, if  we  except  some  of  the  Acanthodians,  we  find  no 
trace  of  this  piece  of  mechanism :  the  arched  space  is  cov- 
ered over  with  dermal  plates  of  bone,  as  a  window  is  filled 
up  with  panes.  Three  plates,  resembling  very  considerably 
the  three  divisions  of  a  pointed  Gothic  window,  furnished 
with  a  single  central  mullion,  divided  atop  into  two 
branches,  occupied  the  space  in  the  genera  Osteolepis  and 
Diplopterus ;  and  two  plates  resembling  the  divisions  of  a 
pointed  Gothic  window,  whose  single  central  mullion  does 
not  branch  atop,  filled  it  up  in  the  genera  Holoptychius 
and  Glyptolepis.  In  the  genus  Asterolepis  this  arch- 
shaped  space  was  occupied,  as  I  have  said,  by  a  single  plate, 
—  that  represented  in  the  wood-cut;  and  the  nail-shaped 
bone  rose  on  its  internal  surface  along  the  centre,  —  the 
nail-head  resting  immediately  beneath  the  centre  of  the 
arch,  and  the  nail-point  bordei'ing  on  the  isthmus  below,  at 
which  the  two  shoulder-bones  terminated.  Now,  in  all  the 
specimens  which  I  have  yet  examined,  the  form  and  pro- 
portions of  this  plate  are  such  that  it  can  be  very  nearly 
inscribed  in  a  semicircle,  of  which  the  length  of  the  nail 
is  the  radius.  A  nail  five  inches  in  length  must  have  be- 
longed to  a  plate  ten  inches  in  its  longer  diameter.  I  have 
ascertained  further,  that  this  longer  diameter  was  equal  to 


464  RAMBLES  OF  A  GEOLOGIST. 

the  shorter  diameter  of  the  creature's  frontal  buckler, 
measured  across  about  two  thirds  of  its  entire  length  from 
the  nape  ;  and  that  a  transverse  diameter  of  ten  inches  at 
this  point  was  associated  in  the  buckler  with  a  longitudinal 
diameter  of  fourteen  inches  from  the  nape  to  the  snout. 
Thus  live  inches  along  the  nail  represent  fourteen  inches 
along  the  occipital  shield.  The  proportion,  however,  which 
the  latter  bore  to  the  entire  body  in  this  genus  has  stiil  to 
be  determined.  The  corresponding  frontal  shield  in  the 
Coccosteus  was  equal  to  about  one-fifth  the  creature's  entire 
length,  and  in  the  Osteolepis  and  Diplopterus,  to  nearly 
one-seventh  its  length;  while  the  length  of  the  Glyptolepis 
leptopterus,  a  fish  of  the  same  family  as  the  Asterolepis, 
was  about  five  and  a  half  times  that  of  its  occipital  shield. 
If  the  Asterolepis  was  formed  in  the  proportions  of  the 
Diplopterus,  the  ancient  individual  to  which  this  nail-like 
bone  belonged  must  have  been  about  eight  feet  two  inches 
in  length;  but  if  moulded,  as  it  more  probably  was,  in  the 
proportions  of  the  Glyptolepis,  only  six  feet  five  inches.  All 
the  Ccelacanths,  however,  were  exceedingly  massive  in  pro- 
portion to  their  length  ;  they  were  fish  built  in  the  square, 
muscular,  thick-set,  Dirk-Hatterick  and  Balfour-of-Burley 
style;  and  of  the  Russian  specimens,  some  of  the  larger 
bones  must  have  belonged  to  individuals  of  from  twice  to 
thrice  the  length  of  the  Stromness  one. 

Passing  upwards  along  the  strata,  step  by  step,  as  along 
a  fallen  stair,  each  stratum  presenting  a  nearly  perpendicu- 
lar front,  but  losing,  in  the  downward  slant  of  the  tread, 
as  a  carpenter  would  say,  the  height  attained  in  the  rise,  I 
came,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  farther  to  the  west,  and 
several  hundred  feet  higher  in  the  formation,  upon  a  fissile 
dark-colored  bed,  largely  charged  with  ichthyolites.  The 
fish  I  found  ranged  in  three  layers,  —  the  lower  layer  con- 
sisting almost  exclusively  of  Dipterians,  chiefly  Osteole- 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGTST.  465 

picles;  the  middle  layer,  of  Acanthodians,  of  the  genera 
Cheiracanthus  and  Diplncanthus ;  and  the  upper  layer,  of 
Cephalaspides,  mostly  of  one  species,  the  Coccosteus  decipi- 
ens.  I  found  exactly  the  same  arrangement  in  a  bed  consid- 
erably higher  in  the  system,  which  occurs  a  full  mile  farther 
on,  —  the  Dipterians  at  the  bottom,  the  Acanthodians  in 
the  middle,  and  the  Cephalaspides  atop ;  and  was  informed 
by  Mr.  William  Watt,  a  competent  authority  in  the  case, 
that  the  arrangement  is  comparatively  a  common  one  in  the 
quarries  of  Orkney.  How  account  for  the  phenomenon  ? 
How  account  for  the  three  storeys,  and  the  apportionment 
of  the  floors,  like  those  of  a  great  city,  each  to  its  own 
specific  class  of  society?  Why  should  the  first  floor  be 
occupied  by  Osteolepides,  the  second  by  Cheiracanthi  and 
their  congeners,  and  the  third  by  Coccostei?  Was  the 
arrangement  an  effect  of  normal  differences  in  the  constitu- 
tions of  the  several  families,  operated  upon  by  some  dele- 
terious gas  or  mineral  poison,  which,  though  it  eventually 
destroyed  the  whole,  did  not  so  simultaneously,  but  con- 
secutively,—  the  families  of  weakest  constitution  first,  and 
the  strongest  last?  Or  were  they  exterminated  by  some 
disease,  that  seized  upon  the  families,  not  at  once,  but  in 
succession  ?  Or  did  they  visit  the  locality  serially,  as  the 
haddock  now  visits  our  coasts  in  spring,  and  the  hen-ing 
towards  the  close  of  summer;  and  were  then  killed  off, 
Avhether  by  poison  or  disease,  as  they  came  ?  These  are 
questions  which  may  never  be  conclusively  answered.  It 
is  well,  however,  to  observe,  as  a  curious  geological  fact, 
that  peculiar  arrangement  of  the  fossils  by  which  they  are 
suggested,  and  to  record  the  various  instances  in  which  it 
occurs.  The  minerals  which  I  remarked  among  the  schists 
here  as  most  abundant  are  a  kind  of  black  ironstone, 
exceedingly  tough  and  hard,  occurring  in  detached  masses, 
and  a  variety  of  bright  pyrites  disseminated  among  the 


466  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

darker  flagstones,  either  as  irregularly-formed,  brassy-look- 
ing concretions  of  small  size,  or  spread  out  on  their  surfaces 
in  thin  leaf-like  films,  that  resemble",  in  some  of  the  speci- 
mens, the  icy-foliage  with  which  a  severe  frost  encrusts  a 
window-pane.  Still  further  on  I  came  upon  a  vein  of 
galena;  but  a  miner's  excavation  in  the  solid  rock,  a  little 
above  high-water  mark,  quite  as  dark  and  nearly  as  narrow 
as  a  fox-earth,  showed  me  that  it  had  been  known  long 
before,  and,  as  the  workings  seemed  to  have  been  deserted 
for  ages,  known  to  but  little  purpose.  The  crystals  of  ore, 
small  and  thinly  scattered,  are  embedded  in  a  matrix  of 
barytes,  stromnite,  and  other  kindred  minerals,  and  the 
thickness  of  the  entire  vein  is  not  very  considerable.  I 
have  since  learned,  from  the  "  Statistical  Account  of  the 
Parish  of  Sandwick,"  that  the  workings  of  the  mine 
penetrate  into  the  rock  for  about  a  hundred  yards,  but 
that  it  has  been  long  abandoned,  "  as  a  speculation  which 
would  not  pay." 

I  observed  scattered  over  the  beach,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  lead  mine,  considerable  quantities  of  the  hard 
chalk  of  England ;  and,  judging  there  could  be  no  deposits 
of  the  hard  chalk  in  this  neighborhood,  I  addressed  myself 

O  «/ 

on  my  way  back,  to  a  kelp-burner  engaged  in  Avrapping 
up  his  fire  for  the  night  with  a  thick  covering  of  weed,  to 
ascertain  how  it  had  come  there.  "Ah,  master,"  he  replied, 
"  that  chalk  is  all  that  remains  of  a  fine  large  English  vessel, 
that  was  knocked  to  pieces  here  a  few  years  ago.  She  was 
ballasted  with  the  chalk ;  and  as  it  is  a  light  sort  of  stone, 
the  surf  has  washed  it  ashore  from  that  low  reef  in  the 
middle  of  the  tideway  where  she  struck  and  broke  up. 
Most  of  the  sailors,  poor  fellows,  lie  in  the  old  churchyard, 
beside  the  broken  ruin  yonder.  It  is  a  deadly  shore  this 
to  seafaring-men."  I  had  understood  that  the  kelp-trade 
was  wholly  at  an  end  in  Orkney ;  and,  remarking  that  the 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  467 

sea-weed  which  he  employed  was  chiefly  of  one  kind,  — 
the  long  brown  fronds  of  tang  dried  in  the  sun,— I  inquired 
of  him  to  what  purpose  the  substance  was  now  employed, 
seeing  that  barilla  and  the  carbonate  of  soda  had  sup- 
planted it  in  the  manufacture  of  soap  and  glass,  and  why 
he  was  so  particular  in  selecting  his  weed.  "  It 's  some 
valuable  medicine,"  he  said,  "  that 's  made  of  the  kelp 
now :  I  forget  its  name ;  but  it 's  used  for  bad  sores  and 
cancer;  and  we  must  be  particular  in  our  weed,  for  it's 
not  every  kind  of  weed  that  has  the  medicine  in 't.  There 's 
most  of  it,  we  're  told,  in  the  leaves  of  the  tang."  "  Is  the 
name  of  the  drug,"  I  asked,  "  iodine  ?  "  "  Ay,  that  must 
be  just  it,"  he  replied,  —  "iodine;  but  it  doesn't  make 
such  a  demand  for  kelp  as  the  glass  and  the  soap."  I 
afterwards  learned  that  the  kelp-burner's  character  of  this 
strip  of  coast,  as  peculiarly  fatal  to  the  mariner,  was  borne 
out  by  many  a  sad  casualty,  too  largely  charged  with  the 
wild  and  the  horrible  to  be  lightly  forgotten.  The 
respected  Free  Church  clergyman  of  Stromness,  Mr.  Lear- 
month,  informed  me  that,  ere  the  Disruption,  while  yet 
minister  of  the  parish,  there  were  on  one  sad  occasion 
eight  dead  bodies  can-led  of  a  Sabbath  morning  to  his 
manse  door.  Some  of  the  incidents  connected  with  these 
terrible  shipwrecks,  as  related  with  much  graphic  effect  by 
a  boatman  who  carried  me  across  the  sound,  on  an  explo- 
ratory ramble  to  the  island  of  Hoy,  struck  me  as  of  a 
character  considerably  beyond  the  reach  of  the  mere  dealer 
in  fiction.  The  master  of  one  hapless  vessel,  a  young  man, 
had  brought  his  wife  and  only  child  with  him  on  the 
voyage  destined  to  terminate  so  mournfully;  and  when 
the  vessel  first  struck,  he  had  rushed  down  to  the  cabin  to 
bring  them  both  on  deck,  as  their  only  chance  of  safety. 
He  had,  however,  unthinkingly  shut  the  cabin-door  after 
him ;  a  second  tremendous  blow,  as  not  unf'rf!<juently 


468  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

happens  in  such  cases,  so  affected  the  framework  of  the 
sides  and  deck,  that  the  door  was  jammed  fast  in  its  frame. 
And  long  ere  it  could  be  cut  open,  —  for  no  human  hand 
could  unfasten  it,  —  the  vessel  had  filled  to  the  beams,  and 
neither  the  master  nor  his  wife  and  child  were  ever  seen 
more.  In  another  ship,  wrecked  within  a  cable-length  of 
the  beach,  the  mate,  a  man  of  Herculean  proportions,  and 
a  skilful  swimmer,  stripped  and  leaped  overboard,  not 
doubting  his  ability  to  reach  the  shore.  But  he  had  failed 
to  remark  what  in  such  circumstances  is  too  often  forgot- 
ten, that  the  element  on  which  he  flung  himself,  beaten 
into  foam  against  the  shallows,  was,  according  to  Mr. 
Bremner's  shrewd  definition,  not  water,  but  a  mixture  of 
water  and  air,  specifically  lighter  than  the  human  body; 
and  so  at  the  shore,  though  so  close  at  hand,  he  never 
arrived,  disappearing  almost  at  the  vessel's  side.  "  The 
ground  was  rough,"  said  my  informant,  "  and  the  sea  ran 
mountains  high ;  and  I  can  scarce  tell  you  how  I  shud- 
dered on  finding,  long  ere  his  corpse  was  thrown  up,  his 
two  eyes  detached  from  their  sockets,  staring  from  a 
wreath  of  sea-weed."  There  is  in  this  last  circumstance, 
horrible  enough  surely  for  the  wildest  German  tale  ever 
written,  a  unique  singularity,  which  removes  it  beyond 
the  reach  of  invention. 

At  my  inn  I  found  a  pressing  invitation  awaiting  me  from 
the  Free  Church  manse,  which  I  was  urged  to  make  my 
home  so  long  as  I  remained  in  that  part  of  the  country.  A 
geologist,  however,  fairly  possessed  by  the  enthusiasm  with- 
out which  weak  man  can  accomplish  nothing,  —  whether  he 
be  a  deer-stalker  or  mammoth-fancier,  or  angle  for  live 
salmon  or  dead  Pterichthyes,  —  has  a  trick  of  forgetting  the 
right  times  of  dining  and  taking  tea,  and  of  throwing  the 
burden  of  his  bodily  requirements  on  early  extempore 
breakfasts  and  late  suppers ;  and  so  reporting  myself  a  man 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

of  irregular  habits  and  bad  hours,  whose  movements  could 
not  in  the  least  be  depended  upon,  I  had  to  decline  the  hos- 
pitality which  would  fain  have  adopted  me  as  its  guest,  not- 
withstanding the  badness  of  the  character  that,  in  common 
honesty,  I  had  to  certify  as  my  own.  Next  morning  I 
breakfasted  at  the  manse,  and  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Lear- 
month  to  two  gentlemen  of  the  place,  who  had  been  kindly 
invited  to  meet  with  me,  and  who,  from  their  acquaintance 
with  the  geology  of  the  district  enabled  me  to  make  the 
best  use  of  my  time,  by  cutting  direct  on  those  cliffs  and 
quarries  in  the  neighborhood  in  which  organic  remains  had 
been  detected,  instead  of  wearily  re-discovering  them  for 
myself.  There  is  a  small  but  interesting  museum  in  Strom- 
ness,  rich  in  the  fossils  of  the  locality ;  and  I  began  the 
geologic  business  of  the  day  by  devoting  an  hour  to  the 
examination  of  its  organisms,  chiefly  ichthyolites.  I  saw 
among  them  several  good  specimens  of  the  genus  Pterich- 
thys,  and  of  what  is  elsewhere  one  of  the  rarer  genera  of  the 
Dipterians, — the  Diplopterus.  A  well-marked  individual 
of  the  latter  genus  had,  I  found,  been  misnamed  Dipterus 
by  some  geological  visitor  who  had  recently  come  the  way, 
—  a  mistake  which,  as  in  both  ichthyolites  the  fins  are  simi- 
larly placed,  occasionally  occurs,  but  which  may  be  easily 
avoided,  when  the  specimens  are  in  a  tolerable  state  of 
preservation,  by  taking  note  of  a  few  well-marked  charac- 
teristics by  which  the  genera  are  distinguished.  In  both 
Dipterus  and  Diplopterus  the  bright  enamel  of  the  scales 
was  thickly  punctulated  by  microscopic  points,  —  the  exte- 
rior terminations  of  funnel-shaped  openings,  that  communi- 
cated between  the  surface  and  the  cells  of  the  middle 
table  of  the  scale ;  but  the  form  of  the  scales  themselves 
was  different,  —  that  of  the  Dipterus  being  nearly  circular, 
and  that  of  the  Diplopterus,  save  on  the  dorsal  ridge,  rhom- 
40 


470  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

boidal.  Again,  the  lateral  line  of  the  Diplopterus  was  a 
raised  line,  running  as  a  ridge  along  the  scales ;  whereas 
that  of  the  Dipterus  was  a  depressed  one,  existing  as  a  fur- 
row. Their  heads,  too,  were  covered  by  an  entirely  dis- 
similar arrangement  of  plates.  The  rounded  snout-plate  of 
the  Diplopterus  was  suddenly  contracted  to  nearly  one-half 
its  breadth  by  two  semi-circular  inflections,  which  formed 
the  orbits  of  the  eyes ;  full  in  the  centre,  a  little  above  these, 
a  minute,  lozenge-shaped  plate  seemed  as  if  inlaid  in  the 
larger  one,  the  analogue,  apparently,  of  the  anterior  frontal ; 
and  over  all  there  expanded  a  broad  plate,  the  superior 
frontal,  half-divided  vertically  by  a  line  drawn  downwards 
from  the  nape,  which,  however,  stopped  short  in  the  middle ; 
and  fretted  transversely  by  two  small  but  deeply-indented 
rectangular  marks,  which,  crossing  from  the  central  to  two 
lateral  plates,  assumed  the  semblance  of  connecting  pins. 
The  snout  of  the  Dipterus  was  less  round;  it  bore  no  mark 
of  the  eye-orbits ;  and  the  frontal  buckler,  broader  in  pro- 
portion to  its  length  than  that  of  the  Diplopterus,  consisted 
of  many  more  plates.  I  may  here  mention  that  the  frontal 
buckler  of  Diplopterus  has  not  yet  been  figured  nor  des- 
cribed; whereas  that  of  Dipterus,  though  unknown  as  such, 
has  been  given  to  the  world  as  the  occipital  covering  of  a 
supposed  Cephalaspian,  —  the  Polyphractus.  Polyphractus 
is,  however,  in  reality  a  synonym  for  Dipterus,  —  the  one 
name  being  derived  from  a  peculiarity  of  the  animal's  fins : 
the  other,  from  the  great  number  of  its  occipital  plates. 
There  is  no  science  founded  on  mere  observation  that  can 
be  altogether  free,  in  its  earlier  stages,  from  mistakes  of  this 
character,  —  mistakes  to  which  the  paleontologist,  however 
skilful,  is  peculiarly  liable.  The  teeth  of  the  two  genera 
were  essentially  different.  Those  of  the  Dipterus,  exclu- 
sively palatal,  were  blunt  and  squat,  and  ranged  in  two 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  471 

rectangular  patches  ;*  while  those  of  the  Diplopterus  bris- 
tled along  its  jaws  and  were  slender  and  sharp.  Their  tails, 
too,  though  both  heterocercal,  were  diverse  in  their  type. 
In  each,  an  angular  strip  of  gradually-diminishing  scales,  — 
a  prolongation  of  the  scaly  coat  which  protected  the  body, 
and  which  covered  here  a  prolongation  of  the  vertebral 
column,  —  ran  on  to  the  extreme  termination  of  the  upper 
lobe ;  but  there  was  in  the  Diplopterus  a  greatly  larger  de- 
velopment of  fin  on  the  superior  or  dorsal  side  of  the  scaly 
strip  than  on  that  of  the  Dipterus.  If  the  caudal  fin  of  the 
Osteolepis  be  divided  longitudinally  into  six  equal  parts,  it 
Avill  be  found  that  one  of  these  occurs  on  the  upper  side  of 
the  vertebral  prolongation,  and  five  on  the  under ;  in  the 
caudal  fin  of  the  Diplopterus  so  divided,  rather  more  than 
two  parts  will  be  found  to  occur  on  the  upper  side,  and 
rather  less  than  four  on  the  under ;  Avhile  in  the  caudal  fin 
of  the  Dipterus  the  development  seems  to  have  been  res- 
tricted to  the  under  side  exclusively ;  at  least,  in  none  of 
the  many  individuals  which  I  have  examined  have  I  found 
any  trace  of  caudal  rays  on  the  upper  side.  These  are  mi- 
nute and  somewhat  trivial  particulars ;  but  the  geologist 
may  find  them  of  use ;  and  the  non-geologist  may  be  dis- 
posed to  extend  to  them  some  little  degree  of  tolerance, 
when  he  considers  that  they  distinguished  two  largely  de- 
veloped genera  of  animals,  to  which  the  Author  of  all  did 
not  deem  it  unworthy  his  wisdom  to  impart,  in  the  act  of 
creation,  certain  marked  points  of  resemblance,  and  other 
certain  points  of  dissimilarity 

*  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  that  the  angular  groups  of  palatal  teeth 
figured  by  Agassiz  and  the  Russian  geologists  as  those  of  a  supposed  Placoid 
termed  the  Ctenodus,  are  in  reality  groups  of  the  palatal  teeth  of  Dip- 
terus. In  some  of  my  specimens  the  frontal  buckler  of  Polyphractus  is 
connected  with  the  gill-covers  and  scales  of  Dipterus,  and  bears  in  its 
pnlate  what  cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  teeth  of  Ctenodus.  The 
three  genera  resolve  themselves  into  one. 


472  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

From  the  Museum,  accompanied  by  one  of  the  gentlemen 
to  whom  Mr.  Learmonth  had  introduced  me  at  breakfast, 
and  who  obligingly  undertook  to  act  as  my  guide  on  the 
occasion,  I  set  out  to  visit  a  remarkable  stack  on  the  sea- 
coast,  about  four  miles  north  and  west  of  Stromness.  We 
scaled  together  the  steep  granitic  hill  immediately  over  the 
town,  and  then  cut  on  the  stack,  straight  as  the  bird  flies, 
across  a  trackless  common,  bare  and  stony,  and  miserably 
pared  by  the  Daughter  spade.  The  landed  proprietors  in 
this  part  of  the  mainland  are  very  numerous,  and  their 
properties  small ;  and  there  are  vast  breadths  of  undivided 
common  that  encircle  their  little  estates,  as  the  Atlantic  en- 
circles the  Orkneys.  But  the  state  in  which  I  found  the 
unappropriated  parts  of  the  district  had  in  no  degree  the 
effect  of  making  me  an  opponent  of  appropriation  or  the 
landholders.  Our  country,  had  it  been  left  as  a  whole  to 
all  its  people,  as  the  Communist  desiderates,  Avould  ere  now 
be  of  exceedingly  little  value  to  any  portion  of  them.  The 
soil  of  the  Orkney  commons  has  been  so  repeatedly  pared 
off  and  carried  away  for  fuel,  that  there  are  now  wide 
tracts  on  which  there  is  no  more  soil  to  pare,  and  which 
present,  for  the  original  covering  of  peaty  mould,  a  con- 
tinuous surface  of  pale  boulder-clay,  here  and  there  mottled 
by  detached  tufts  of  scraggy  heath,  and  here  and  there 
roughened  by  projections  of  the  underlying  rock.  All  is 
unredeemable  barrenness.  On  the  other  hand,  wherever  a 
bit  of  private  property  appears,  though  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  these  ruined  wastes,  the  surface  is  swarded 
over,  and  the  soil  is  the  better,  not  the  worse,  for  the  ser- 
vices which  it  has  rendered  to  man  in  the  past.  Whatever 
the  Chartist  and  the  Leveller  may  think  of  the  matter,  it  is, 
I  find,  virtually  on  behalf  of  the  many  that  the  soil  has  been 
appropriated  by  the  few.  After  passing  from  off  the  tract 
of  moor  which  overlies  the  granitic  axis  of  the  district,  to  a 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  473 

tract  equally  moory  which  spreads  over  the  gray  flagstones, 
I  marked,  more  especially  in  the  hollows  and  ravines,  where 
minute  springs  ooze  from  the  rock,  vast  quantities  of  bog- 
iron  embedded  in  the  soil,  and  presenting  greatly  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  scoria  of  a  smith's  forge.  The  apparent 
scoria  here  is  simply  a  reproduction  of  the  iron  of  the  under- 
lying flagstones,  transferred,  through  the  agency  of  water, 
to  that  stratum  of  vegetable  mould  and  boulder-clay  which 
represents  the  recent  period. 

I  found  the  stack  which  I  had  been  brought  to  see  form- 
ing the  picturesque  centre  of  a  bold  tract  of  rock  scenery. 
It  stands  out  from  the  land  as  a  tall  insulated  tower,  about 
two  hundred  feet  in  height,  sorely  worn  at  its  base  by  the 
breakers  that  ceaselessly  fret  against  its  sides,  but  consider- 
ably broader  atop,  where  it  bears  a  flat  cover  of  sward  on 
the  same  level  with  the  tops  of  the  precipices  which  in  the 
lapse  of  ages  have  receded  firom  around  it.  Like  the 
SAvard-crested  hammock  left  by  a  party  of  laborers,  to 
mark  the  depth  to  which  they  have  cut  in  removing  a 
bank  or  digging  a  pond,  it  remains  to  indicate  how  the 
attrition  of  the  surf  has  told  upon  the  iron-bound  coast ; 
demonstrating  that  lines  of  precipices  hard  as  iron,  and  of 
giddy  elevation,  are  in  full  retreat  before  the  dogged  per- 
severance of  an  assailant  that,  though  baffled  in  each  single 
attack,  ever  returns  to  the  charge,  and  gains  by  an  aggre- 
gation of  infinitesimals, —  the  result  of  the  whole.  From 
the  edge  of  a  steep  promontory  that  commands  an  inflec- 
tion of  the  coast,  and  of  the  wall  of  rock  which  sweeps 
round  it,  I  watched  for  a  few  seconds  the  sea,  —  greatly 
heightened  at  the  time  by  the  setting  in  of  the  flood-tide, 
—  as  it  broke,  surge  after  surge,  against  the  base  of  the  tall 
dark  precipices ;  and  marked  how  it  accomplished  its  work 
of  disintegration.  The  flagstone  deposit  here  abounds  in 
vertical  cracks  and  flaws ;  and  in  the  line  of  each  of  the 

40* 


474  HANDLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

many  fissures  which  these  form  the  waves  have  opened  up 
a  cave ;  so  that  for  hundreds  of  yards  together  the  preci- 
pices seem  as  if  founded  on  arch-divided  piers,  and  remind 
one  of  those  ancient  prints  or  drawings  of  Old  London 
Bridge  in  which  a  range  of  tall  sombre  buildings  is  repre- 
sented as  rising  high  over  a  line  of  arches ;  or  of  rows  of 
lofty  houses  in  those  cities  of  southern  Europe  in  which 
the  dwellings  fronting  the  streets  are  perforated  beneath 
by  lines  of  squat  piazzas,  and  present  above  a  dingy  and 
windowless  breadth  of  wall.  In  course  of  time  the  piers 
attenuate  and  give  way ;  the  undermined  precipices  topple 
down,  parting  from  the  solid  mass  behind  in  those  vertical 
lines  by  which  they  are  traversed  at  nearly  right  angles 
with  their  line  of  stratification;  the  perpendicular  front 
which  they  had  covered  comes  to  be  presented,  in  conse- 
quence, to  the  sea;  its  faults  and  cracks  gradually  widen 
into  caves,  as  those  of  the  fallen  front  had  gradually  wid- 
ened at  an  earlier  period ;  in  the  lapse  of  centuries,  it  too, 
resigning  its  place,  topples  over  headlong,  an  undermined 
mass ;  the  surge  dashes  white  and  furious  where  the  dense 
rock  had  rested  before ;  and  thus,  in  its  slow  but  irresisti- 
ble march,  the  sea  gains  upon  the  land.  In  the  peculiar 
disposition  and  character  of  the  prevailing  strata  of  Ork- 
ney, as  certainly  as  in  the  power  of  the  tides  which  sweep 
athwart  its  coasts,  and  the  wide  extent  of  sea  which, 
stretching  around  it,  gives  the  waves  scope  to  gather  bulk 
and  momentum,  may  be  found  the  secret  of  the  extraordi- 
nary height  to  which  the  surf  sometimes  rises  against  its 
walls  of  rock.  During  the  fiercer  tempests,  masses  of  foam 
shoot  upwards  against  the  precipices,  like  inverted  catar- 
acts, fully  two  hundred  feet  over  the  ordinary  tide-level, 
and,  washing  away  the  looser  soil  from  their  summits, 
leaves  in  its  place  patches  of  slaty  gravel,  resembling  that 
of  a  common  sea-beach.  Rocks  less  perpendicular,  how- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  475 

ever  great  the  violence  of  the  wind  and  sen,  would  fail  to 
project  upwards  bodies  of  surf  to  a  height  so  extraordi- 
nary. But  the  low  angle  at  which  the  strata  lie,  and  the 
rectangularity  maintained  in  relation  to  their  line  of  bed 
by  the  fissures  which  traverse  them,  give  to  the  Orkney 
precipices,  —  remarkable  for  their  perpendicularity  and 
their  mural  aspect,  —  exactly  the  angle  against  which  the 
waves,  as  broken  masses  of  foam,  beat  up  to  their  greatest 
possible  altitude.  On  a  tract  of  iron-bound  coast  that 
skirts  the  entrance  of  the  Cromarty  Frith  I  have  seen  the 
surf  rise,  during  violent  gales  from  the  north-west  espe- 
cially, against  one  rectangular  rock,  known  as  the  White 
Rock,  fully  an  hundred  feet ;  while  against  scarcely  any  of 
the  other  precipices,  more  sloping,  though  equally  exposed, 
did  it  rise  more  than  half  that  height. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

Detached  Fossils  —  Remains  of  the  Pterichthys  —  Terminal  Bones  of  the  Coccos- 
teus,  etc.,  preserved  —  Internal  Skeleton  of  Coccosteus  —  The  shipwrecked 
Sailor  in  the  Cave  —  Bishop  Grahame  —  His  Character,  as  drawn  by  Baillie  — 
His  Successor  —  Coins  of  the  Bishop's  Country-house  —  Sub  aerial  Formation 
of  Sandstone  —  Formation  near  New  Kaye  —  Inference  from  such  Formation 
—  Tour  resumed  —  Loch  of  Stennis  —  "Waters  of  the  Loch  fresh,  brackish, 
and  salt  —Vegetation  varied  accordingly  —  Change  produced  in  the  Flounder 
by  fresh  water  —  The  Standing  Stones,  second  only  to  Stonehenge  —  Their 
purpose  —  Their  Appearance  and  Situation — Diameter  of  the  Circle — "What 
the  Antiquaries  say  of  it  —  Reference  to  it  in  the  "  Pirate  "  —  Dr.  Hibbert's 
Account. 

WE  returned  to  Stromness  along  the  edge  of  the  cliffs 
gradually  descending  from  higher  to  lower  ranges  of  pre- 
pices,  and  ever  and  anon  detecting  ichthyolite  beds  in  the 
weathered  and  partially  decomposed  strata.  As  the  rock 
moulders  into  an  incoherent  clay,  the  fossils  which  it 
envelops  become  not  unfrequently  wholly  detached  from 
it,  so  that,  on  a  smart  blow  dealt  by  the  hammer,  they  leap 
out  entire,  resembling,  from  the  degree  of  compression 
which  they  exhibit,  those  mimic  fishes  carved  out  of  plates 
of  ivory  or  of  mother-of-pearl,  which  are  used  as  counters 
in  some  of  the  games  of  China  or  the  East  Indies.  The 
material  of  which  they  are  composed,  a  brittle  jet,  though 
better  suited  than  the  stone  to  resist  the  disintegrating 
influences,  is  in  most  cases  greatly  too  fragile  for  preserva- 
tion. One  may,  however,  acquire  from  the  fragments  a 
knowledge  of  certain  minute  points  in  the  structure  of  the 
ancient  animals  to  which  they  belonged,  respecting  which 
specimens  of  a  more  robust  texture  give  no  evidence. 
The  plates  of  Coccosteus  sometimes  spring  out  as  un- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  477 

broken  as  when  they  covered  the  living  animal,  and,  if  the 
necessary  skill  be  not  wanting,  may  be  set  up  in  their 
original  order.  And  I  possess  specimens  of  the  head  of 
Dipterus  in  which  the  nearly  circular  gill-covers  may  be 
examined  on  both  surfaces,  interior  and  exterior,  and  in 
which  the  cranial  portion  shows  not  only  the  enamelled 
plates  of  the  frontal  buckler,  but  also  the  strange  mechan- 
ism of  the  palatal  teeth,  with  the  intervening  cavities  that 
had  lodged  both  the  brain  and  the  occipital  part  of  the 
spine.  The  fossils  on  the  top  of  the  cliffs  here  are  chiefly 
Dipterians  of  the  two  closely  allied  genera,  Diplopterus 
and  Osteolepis. 

A  little  farther  on,  I  found,  on  a  hill-side  in  which  exten- 
sive slate-quarries  had  once  been  wrought,  the  remains  of 
Pterichthys  existing  as  mere  patches,  from  which  the  color 
had  been  discharged,  but  in  which  the  almost  human-like 
outline  of  both  body  and  arms  were  still  distinctly  tracea- 
ble ;  and  farther  on  still,  where  the  steep  wall  of  cliffs 
sinks  into  a  line  of  grassy  banks,  I  saw  in  yet  another 
quarry,  ichthyolites  of  all  the  three  great  ganoid  families 
so  characteristic  of  the  Old  Red,  —  Cephalaspians,  Dipteri- 
ans, and  Acanthodians,  —  ranged  in  the  three-storied 
order  to  which  I  have  already  referred  as  so  inexplicable. 
The  specimens,  however,  though  numerous,  are  not  fine. 
They  are  resolved  into  a  brittle  bituminous  coal,  resem- 
bling hard  pitch  or  black  wax,  which  is  always  considera- 
bly less  tenacious  than  the  matrix  in  which  they  are 
inclosed ;  and  so,  when  laid  open  by  the  hammer,  they 
usually  split  through  the  middle  of  the  plates  and  scales, 
instead  of  parting  from  the  stone  at  their  surfaces,  and 
resemble,  in  consequence,  those  dark,  shadoAV-like  profiles 
taken  in  Indian  ink  by  the  limner,  which  exhibit  a  correct 
outline,  but  no  details.  We  find,  however,  in  some  of  the 
genera,  portions  of  the  animal  preserved  that  are  rarely 


478  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

seen  in  a  state  of  keeping  equally  perfect  in  the  ichthyo- 
lites  of  Cromarty,  Moray,  or  Banff,  —  those  terminal  bones 
of  the  Coceosteus,  for  instance,  that  were  prolonged 
beyond  the  plates  by  which  the  head  and  upper  parts  of 
the  body  were  covered.  Wherever  the  ichthyolites  are 
inclosed  in  nodules,,  as  in  the  more  southerly  counties  over 
which  the  deposit  extends,  the  nodule  terminates,  in 
almost  every  case,  with  the  massier  portions  of  the  organ- 
ism; for  the  thinner  parts,  too  inconsiderable  to  have 
served  as  attractive  nuclei  to  the  stony  matter  when  the 
concretion  was  forming,  were  left  outside  its  pale,  and  so 
have  been  lost;  whereas,  in  the  northern  districts  of  the 
deposit,  where  the  fossils,  as  in  Caithness  and  Orkney, 
occur  in  flagstone,  these  slimmer  parts,  when  the  general 
state  of  keeping  is  tolerably  good,  lie  spread  out  on  the 
planes  of  the  slabs,  entire  often  in  their  minutest  rays  and 
articulations.  The  numerous  Coccostei  of  this  quarry 
exhibit,  attached  to  their  upper  plates,  their  long  vertebral 
columns,  of  many  joints,  that,  depending  from  the  broad 
dorsal  shields  of  the  ichthyolite,  remind  one  of  those  skel- 
eton fishes  one  sometimes  sees  on  the  shores  of  a  fishing 
village,  in  which  the  bared  backbone  joints  on,  cord-like, 
to  the  broad  plates  of  the  skull.  None  of  the  other  fishes 
of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone  possessed  an  internal  skeleton 
so  decidedly  osseous  as  that  of  the  Coceosteus,  and  none 
of  them  presented  externally  so  large  an  extent  of  naked 
skin,  —  provisions  which  probably  went  togethei-.  For 
about  three-fifths  of  the  entire  length  of  the  animal  the 
surface  was  unprotected  by  dermal  plates ;  and  the  mus- 
cles must  have  found  the  fulcrums  on  which  they  acted  in 
the  internal  skeleton  exclusively.  And  hence  a  necessity 
for  greater  strength  in  their  interior  framework  than  in 
that  of  fishes  as  strongly  fenced  round  externally  by  scales 
or  plates  as  the  coleoptera  by  their  elytrine,  or  the  crusta- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  479 

cea  by  their  shells.  Even  in  the  Coccosteus,  however,  the 
ossification  was  by  no  means  complete ;  and  the  analogies 
of  the  skeleton  seem  to  have  allied  it  rather  with  the  skel- 
etons of  the  sturgeon  family  than  with  the  skeletons  of  the 
sharks  or  rays.  The  processes  of  the  vertebra  were 
greatly  more  solid  in  their  substance  than  the  vertebra) 
themselves,  —  a  condition  which  in  the  sharks  and  rays  is 
always  reversed;  and  they  frequently  survive,  each  with 
its  little  sprig  of  bone,  formed  like  the  letter  Y,  that 
attached  it  to  its  eentrum^projecting  from  it,  in  specimens 
from  which  the  vertebral  column  itself  has  wholly  disap- 
peared. I  found  frequent  traces,  during  my  exploratory 
labors  in  Orkney,  of  the  dorsal  and  ventral  fins  of  this  ich- 
thyolite ;  but  no  trace  whatever  of  the  pectorals  or  of  the 
caudal  fin.  There  seem  to  have  been  no  pectorals ;  and 
the  tail,  as  I  have  always  had  occasion  to  remark,  was 
apparently  a  mere  point,  unfurnished  with  rays. 

In  descending  from  the  cliffs  upon  the  quarries,  my  com- 
panion pointed  to  an  angular  notch  in  the  rock-edge, 
apparently  the  upper  termination  of  one  of  the  numerous 
vertical  cracks  by  which  the  precipices  are  traversed,  and 
which  in  so  many  cases  on  the  Orkney  coast  have  been 
hollowed  by  the  waves  into  long  open  coves  or  deep  cav- 
erns. It  was  up  there,  he  said,  that  about  twelve  years 
ago  the  sole  survivor  of  a  ship's  crew  contrived  to  scram- 
ble, four  days  after  his  vessel  had  been  dashed  to  frag- 
ments against  the  rocks  below,  and  when  it  was  judged 
that  all  on  board  had  perished.  The  vessel  was  wrecked 
on  a  Wednesday.  She  had  been  marked,  when  in  the 
offing,  standing  for  the  bay  of  Stromness;  but  the  storm 
was  violent,  and  the  shore  a  lee  one ;  and  as  it  was  seen 
from  the  beach  that  she  could  scarce  weather  the  headland 
yonder,  a  number  of  people  gathered  along  the  cliffs,  fur- 
nished with  ropes,  to  render  to  the  crew  whatever  assist- 


480  RAMBLES    OP    A    GEOLOGIST. 

ance  might  be  possible  in  the  circumstances.  Human 
help,  however,  was  to  avail  them  nothing.  Their  vessel,  a 
fine  schooner,  when  within  forty  yards  of  the  promontory, 
was  seized  broadside  by  an  enormous  wave,  and  dashed 
against  the  cliff,  as  one  might  dash  a  glass-phial  against  a 
stone-wall.  One  blow  completed  the  work  of  destruction ; 
she  went  rolling  in  entire  from  keel  to  mast-head,  and 
returned,  on  the  recoil  of  the  broken  surge,  a  mass  of 
shapeless  fragments,  that  continued  to  dance  idly  amid 
the  foam,  or  were  scattered  along  the  beach.  But  of  the 
poor  men,  whom  the  spectators  had  seen  but  a  few  seconds 
before  running  wildly  about  the  deck,  there  remained  not 
a  trace ;  and  the  saddened  spectators  returned  to  their 
homes  to  say  that  all  had  perished.  Four  days  after,  —  on 
the  morning  of  the  following  Sabbath,  —  the  sole  survivor 
of  the  crew,  saved,  as  if  by  miracle,  climbed  up  the  preci- 
pice, and  presented  himself  to  a  group  of  astonished  and 
terrified  country  people,  who  could  scarce  regard  him  as  a 
creature  of  this  world.  The  fissure,  which  at  the  top  of 
the  cliff  forms  but  a  mere  angular  inflection,  is  hollowed 
below  into  a  low-roofed  cave  of  profound  depth,  into  the 
farther  extremity  of  which  the  tide  hardly  ever  penetrates. 
It  is  floored  by  a  narrow  strip  of  shingly  beach ;  and  on 
this  bit  of  beach,  far  within  the  cave,  the  sailor  found  him- 
self, half  a  minute  after  the  vessel  had  struck  and  <?one  to 

*  O 

pieces,  washed  in,  he  knew  not  how.  Two  pillows  and  a 
few  dozen  red  herrings,  which  had  been  swept  in  along 
with  him,  served  him  for  bed  and  board  ;  a  tin  cover  ena- 
bled him  to  catch  enough  of  the  fresh-water  droppings  of 
the  roof  to  quench  his  thii-st ;  several  large  fragments  of 
wreck  that  had  been  jammed  fast  athwart  the  opening  of 
the  cave  broke  the  violence  of  the  wind  and  sea ;  and  in 
that  doleful  prison,  day  after  day,  he  saw  the  tides  sink 
and  rise,  and  lay,  when  the  surf  rolled  high  at  the  fall  of 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  481 

the  tide,  in  titter  darkness  even  at  mid-day,  as  the  waves 
outside  rose  to  the  roof,  and  inclosed  him  in  a  chamber  as 
entirely  cut  off  from  the  external  atmosphere  as  that  of  a 
diving  bell.  He  was  oppressed  in  the  darkness,  every 
time  the  waves  came  rolling  in  and  compressed  his  modi- 
cum of  air,  by  a  sensation  of  extreme  heat,  —  an  effect  of 
the  condensation ;  and  then,  in  the  interval  of  recession, 
and  consequent  expansion,  by  a  sudden  chill.  At  low  ebb 
he  had  to  work  hard  in  clearing  away  the  accumulations 
of  stone  and  gravel  which  had  been  rolled  in  by  the  pre- 
vious tide,  and  threatened  to  bury  him  up  altogether.  At 
length  he  succeeded,  after  many  a  fruitless  attempt,  in 
gaining  an  upper  ledge  that  overhung  his  prison-mouth ; 
and,  by  a  path  on  which  a  goat  would  scarce  have  found 
footing,  he  scrambled  to  the  top.  His  name  was  John- 
stone;  and  the  cave  is  still  known  as  "Johnstone's  Cave." 
Such  was  the  narrative  of  my  companion. 

A  little  farther  on,  the  undulating  bank,  into  which  the 
cliffs  sink,  projects  into  the  sea  as  a  flat  green  promontory, 
edged  with  hills  of  indurated  sand,  and  topped  by  a  pic- 
turesque ruin,  that  forms  a  pleasing  object  in  the  land- 
scape. The  ruin  is  that  of  a  country  residence  of  the  bish- 
ops of  Orkney  during  the  disturbed  and  unhappy  reign  of 
Scotch  Episcopacy,  and  bears  on  a  flat  tablet  of  weath- 
ered sandstone  the  initials  of  its  founder,  Bishop  George 
Grahame,  and  the  date  of  its  erection,  10:5:}.  With  a  green 
cultivated  oasis  immediately  around  it,  and  a  fine  open 
sound,  overlooked  by  the  bold,  picturesque  cliffs  of  Hoy, 
in  front,  it  must  have  been,  for  at  least  half  the  year,  an 
agreeable,  and,  as  its  remains  testify,  a  not  uncomforta- 
ble habitation.  But  I  greatly  fear  Scottish  clergymen  of 
the  Establishment,  whether  Presbyterian  or  Episcopalian, 
when  obnoxious,  from  their  position  or  their  tenets,  to  the 
great  bulk  of  the  Scottish  people,  have  not  been  left,  since 
41 


482  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

at  least  the  Rcfcn-mation,  to  enjoy  either  quiet  or  happy 
lives,  however  extrinsically  favorable  the  circumstances  in 
which  they  may  have  been  placed.  Bishop  Grahame,  only 
five  years  after  the  date  of  the  erection,  was  tried  before 
the  famous  General  Assembly  of  1638 ;  and,  being  con- 
victed of  having  "  all  the  ordinar  faults  of  a  bishop,"  he 
was  deposed,  and  ordered  within  a  limited  time  "  to  give 
tokens  of  repentance,  under  paine  of  excommunication.'' 
"  He  was  a  curler  on  the  ice  on  the  Sabbath  day,"  says 
Baillie,  — "  a  setter  of  tacks  to  his  sones  and  grandsones, 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  Church;  he  oversaw  adulterie  ; 
slighted  charming ;  neglected  preaching  and  doing  of 
anie  good ;  and  held  portions  of  ministers'  stipends  for 
building  his  cathedral."  The  concluding  portion  of  his 
life,  after  his  deposition,  was  spent  in  obscurity;  nor  did 
his  successor  in  the  bishoprick,  subsequent  to  the  rces- 
tablishrnent  of  Episcopacy  at  the  Restoration,  —  Bishop 
Honeyman,  —  close  his  days  more  happily.  He  was  struck 
in  the  arm  by  the  bullet  which  the  zealot  Mitchell  had 
intended  for  Archbishop  Sharp ;  and  the  shattered  bone 
never  healed  ;  "  for,  though  he  lived  some  years  after," 
says  Burnet,  "  they  were  forced  to  lay  open  the  wound 
every  year,  for  an  exfoliation  ; "  and  his  life  was  eventually 
shortened  by  his  sufferings.  All  seemed  comfortable 
enough,  and  quite  quiet  enough,  in  the  bishop's  country- 
house  to-day.  There  were  two  cows  quietly  chewing  the 
cud  in  what  apparently  had  been  the  dignitary's  sitting- 
room,  and  patiently  awaiting  the  services  of  a  young 
woman  who  was  approaching  at  some  little  distance  with 
a  pail.  A  large  gray  cat,  that  had  been  sunning  herself 
in  a  sheltered  corner  of  the  court-yard,  started  up  at  our 
approach,  and  disappeared  through  a  slit  hole.  The  sun, 
now  gone  far  down  the  sky,  shone  brightly  on  shattered 
gable-tops,  and  roofless,  rough-edged  walls,  revealing  many 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  483 

a  flaw  and  chasm  in  the  yielding  masonry  ;  and  their  shad- 
ows fell  with  picturesque  effect  on  the  loose  litter,  rude 
implements,  and  gapped  dry-stone  fence,  of  the  neglected 
farm-yard  which  surrounds  the  building. 

I  have  said  that  the  flat  promontory  occupied  by  the 
ruin  is  edged  by  hills  of  indurated  sand.  Existing  in 
some  places  as  a  continuous  bed  of  a  soft  gritty  sandstone, 
scooped  wave-like  a-top,  and  varying  from  five  to  eight 
feet  in  thickness,  they  form  a  curious  example  of  a  sub- 
aerial  formation,' — the  sand  of  which  they  are  composed 
having  been  all  blown  from  the  sea-beach,  and  consolidated 
by  the  action  of  moisture  on  a  calcareous  mixture  of  com- 
minuted shells,  which  forms  from  twenty  to  twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  their  entire  mass.  I  found  that  the  sections 
of  the  bed  laid  optm  by  the  encroachments  of  the  sen, 
were  scarce  less  regularly  stratified  than  those  of  a  sub- 
aqueous deposit,  and  that  it  was  hollowed,  where  most  ex- 
posed to  the  Aveather,  into  a  number  of  spherical  cells, 
which  gave  to  those  parts  of  the  surface  where  they  lay 
thickest,  somewhat  the  aspect  of  a  rude  Runic  fret-work, 
—  an  appearance  not  uncommon  in  weathered  sandstones. 
With  more  time  to  spare,  I  could  fain  have  studied  the 
deposit  more  carefully,  in  the  hope  of  detecting  a  few 
peculiarities  of  structure  sufficient  to  distinguish  sub- 
aerially-formed  from  subaqueously-deposited  beds  of  stone. 
Sandstones  of  subaerial  formation  are  of  no  very  unfre- 
quent  occurrence  among  the  recent  deposits.  On  the 
coast  of  Cornwall  there  are  cliffs  of  considerable  height 
that  extend  for  several  miles,  and  have  attained  a  degree 
of  solidity  sufficient  to  serve  the  commoner  purposes  of 
the  architect,  which  at  one  time  existed  as  accumulations 
of  blown  sand.  "It  is  around  the  promontory  of  New 
Kaye,"  says  Dr.  Paris,  in  an  interesting  memoir  on  the 
subject,  "that  the  most  extensive  formation  of  sandstone 


484  RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST. 

takes  place.  Here  it  may  be  seen  in  different  stages  of 
induration,  from  a  state  in  which  it  is  too  friable  to  be  de- 
tached from  the  rock  upon  which  it  reposes,  to  a  hardness 
so  considerable,  that  it  requires  a  violent  blow  from  a 
sledge-hammer  to  break  it.  Buildings  are  here  constructed 
of  it ;  the  church  of  Craustock  is  entirely  built  with  it ; 
and  it  is  also  employed  for  various  articles  of  domestic 
and  agricultural  uses.  The  geologist  who  has  previously 
examined  the  celebrated  specimen  from  Guadaloupe  will  be 
struck  with  the  great  analogy  which  it  bears  to  this  for- 
mation." Now,  as  vast  tracts  of  the  earth's  surface,  —  in 
some  parts  of  the  world,  as  in  Northern  Africa,  millions  of 
square  miles  together, —  are  at  present  overlaid  by  accumu- 
lations of  sand,  which  have  this  tendency  to  consolidate 
and  become  lasting  subaerial  formations,  destined  to  oc- 
cupy a  place  among  the  future  strata  of  the  globe,  it  seems 
impossible  but  that  also  in  the  old  geologic  periods  there 
must  have  been,  as  now,  sand-wastes  and  subaerial  forma- 
tions. And  as  the  representatives  of  these  may  still  exist 
in  some  of  our  sandstone  quarries,  it  might  be  well  to  be 
possessed  of  a  knowledge  of  the  peculiarities  by  which 
they  are  to  be  distinguished  from  deposits  of  subaqueous 
origin.  In  order  that  I  might  have  an  opportunity  of 
studying  these  peculiarities  where  they  are  to  be  seen 
more  extensively  developed  than  elsewhere  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Scotland,  I  here  formed  the  intention  of  spending 
a  day,  on  my  return  south,  among  the  sand-wastes  of 
Moray,  —  a  purpose  which  I  afterwards  carried  into  effect. 
But  of  that  more  anon. 

On  the  following  morning,  availing  myself  of  a  kind 
invitation,  through  Dr.  Garson,  from  his  brother,  a  Free 
Church  minister  resident  in  an  inland  district  of  the  Main- 
land, in  convenient  neighborhood  with  the  northern  coasts 
of  the  island,  and  with  several  quarries,  I  set  out  from 


RAMBLES   CF   A    GEOLOGIST.  485 

Stromness,  taking  in  my  way  the  Loch  and  Standing  Stones 
of  Stennis,  which  I  had  previously  seen  from  but  my  seat 
in  the  mail-gig  as  I  passed.  Mr.  Learmonth,  who  had  to 
visit  some  of  his  people  in  this  direction,  accompanied  me 
for  several  miles  along  the  shores  of  the  loch,  and  lightened 
the  journey  by  his  interesting  snatches  of  local  history, 
suggested  by  the  various  objects  that  lay  along  our  road, 
—  buildings,  tumuli,  ancient  battle-fields,  and  standing 
stones.  The  loch  itself,  an  expansive  sheet  of  water  four- 
teen miles  in  circumference,  I  contemplated  with  much 
interest,  and  longed  for  an  opportunity  of  studying  its  nat- 
ural history.  Two  promontories,  —  those  occupied  by  the 
Standing  Stones,  shoot  out  from  the  opposite  sides,  and 
approach  so  near  as  to  be  connected  by  a  rustic  bridge. 
They  divide  the  loch  into  two  nearly  equal  parts,  the  lower 
of  which  gives  access  to  the  sea,  and  is  salt  in  its  nether 
reaches  and  brackish  in  its  upper  ones,  while  the  higher  is 
merely  brackish  in  its  nether  reaches,  and  fresh  enough  in 
its  upper  ones  to  be  potable.  The  shores  of  both  were 
strewed,  at  the  time  I  passed,  by  a  line  of  wrack,  consisting, 
for  the  first  few  miles,  from  where  the  lower  loch  opens  to 
the  sea,  of  only  marine  plants,  then  of  marine  plants  mixed 
with  those  of  fresh-water  growth,  and  then,  in  the  upper 
sheet  of  water,  of  lacustrine  plants  exclusively.  And  the 
fauna  of  the  loch,  like  its  flora,  is,  I  was  led  to  understand,  of 
the  same  mixed  character ;  the  marine  and  fresh-water  ani- 
mals having  each  their  own  reaches,  with  certain  debatable 
tracts  between,  in  which  each  expatiates  with  more  or  less 
freedom,  according  to  its  nature  and  constitution,  —  some  of 
the  sea-fishes  advancing  far  on  the  fresh  water,  and  others, 
among  the  proper  denizens  of  the  lake,  encroaching  far  on 
the  salt.  The  common  fresh-water  eel  strikes  out,  I  was 
told,  farthest  into  the  sea-water;  in  which,,  indeed,  re- 
versing the  habits  of  the  salmon,  it  is  known  in  various 
41* 


486  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

places  to  deposit  its  spawn ;  it  seeks,  too,  impatient  of  a 
low  temperature,  to  escape  from  the  cold  of  winter,  by 
taking  refuge  in  water  brackish  enough  in  a  climate  such  as 
ours  to  resist  the  influence  of  frost.  Of  the  marine  fishes, 
on  the  other  hand,  I  found  that  the  flounder  got  greatly 
higher  than  any  of  the  others,  inhabiting  reaches  of  the 
lake  almost  entirely  fresh.  A  memoir  on  the  Loch  of 
Stennis  and  its  productions,  animal  and  vegetable,  such  as 
a  Gilbert  White  of  Selborne  could  produce,  would  be  at 
once  a  very  valuable  and  very  curious  document.  By 
dividing  it  into  reaches,  in  which  the  average  saltness  of 
the  water  was  carefully  ascertained,  and  its  productions 
noted,  with  the  various  modifications  which  these  under- 
went as  they  receded  upwards  or  downwards  from  their 
proper  habitat  towards  the  line  at  which  they  could  no 
longer  exist,  much  information  might  be  acquired,  of  a  kind 
important  to  the  naturalist,  and  not  without  its  use  to  the 
geological  student.  I  have  had  an  opportunity  elsewhere 
of  observing  a  curious  change  which  fresh-water  induces  on 

o  o 

the  flounder.  In  the  brackish  water  of  an  estuary  it  be- 
comes, without  diminishing  in  general  size,  thicker  and 
more  fleshy  than  when  in  its  legitimate  habitat  the  sea; 
but  the  flesh  loses  in  quality  what  it  gains  in  quantity  ;  — 
it  is  flabby  and  insipid,  and  the  margin-fin  lacks  always  its 
delicious  strip  of  transparent  fat.  I  fain  wish  that  some 
intelligent  resident  on  the  shores  of  Stennis  would  set  him- 
self carefully  to  examine  its  productions,  and  that  then, 
after  registering  his  observations  for  a  few  years,  he  would 
favor  the  world  with  its  natural  history. 

The  Standing  Stones,  —  second  in  Britain  of  their  kind, 
to  only  those  of  Stonehenge,  —  occur  in  two  groups ;  the 
smaller  group  (composed,  however,  of  the  taller  stones)  on 
the  southern  promontory ;  the  larger  on  the  northern  one. 
Rude  and  shapeless,  and  bearing  no  other  impress  of  the 
designing  faculty  than  that  they  are  stuck  endwise  in  the 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  487 

earth,  and  form,  as  a  whole,  regular  figures  on  the  sward, 
there  is  yet  a  sublime  solemnity  about  them,  unsurpassed 
in  effect  by  any  ruin  I  have  yet  seen,  however  grand  in  its 
design  or  imposing  in  its  proportions.  Their  very  rudeness, 
associated  with  their  ponderous  bulk  and  weight,  adds  to 
their  impressiveness.  When  there  is  art  and  taste  enough 
in  a  country  to  hew  an  ornate  column,  no  one  marvels  that 
there  should  also  be  mechanical  skill  enough  in  it  to  set  it 
up  on  end;  but  the  men  who  tore  from  the  quarry  these 
vast  slabs,  some  of  them  eighteen  feet  in  height  over  the 
soil,  and  raised  them  where  they  now  stand,  must  have 
been  ignorant  savages,  unacquainted  with  machinery,  and 
unfurnished,  apparently,  with  a  single  tool.  And  what, 
when  contemplating  their  handiwork,  we  have  to  subtract 
in  idea  from  their  minds,  we  add,  by  an  involuntary  pro- 
cess, to  their  bodies :  we  come  to  regard  the  feats  which 
they  have  accomplished  as  performed  by  a  power  not  me- 
chanical, but  gigantic.  The  consideration,  too,  that  these 
remains,  —  eldest  of  the  works  of  man  in  this  country,  — 
should  have  so  long  survived  all  definite  tradition  of  the 
purposes  which  they  were  raised  to  serve,  so  that  WTC  now 
merely  know  regarding  them  that  they  were  religious  in 
their  uses,  —  products  of  that  ineradicable  instinct  of  man's 
nature  which  leads  him  in  so  many  various  ways  to  attempt 
conciliating  the  Powers  of  another  world,  —  serves  greatly 
to  heighten  their  effect.  History  at  the  time  of  their  erec- 
tion had  no  existence  in  these  islands :  the  age,  though  it 
sought,  through  the  medium  of  strange,  unknown  rites,  to 
communicate  with  Heaven,  was  not  knowing  enough  to 
communicate,  through  the  medium  of  alphabet  or  symbol, 
with  posterity.  The  appearance  of  the  obelisks,  too,  har- 
monizes well  with  their  great  antiquity  and  the  obscurity 
of  their  origin.  For  about  a  man's  height  from  the  ground 
they  are  covered  thick  by  the  shorter  lichens,  —  chiefly  the 


488  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

gray-stone  parmelia, — here  and  there  embroidered  by 
golden-hued  patches  of  the  yellow  parmelia  of  the  wall ; 
but  their  heads  and  shoulders,  raised  beyond  the  reach 
alike  of  the  herd-boy  and  of  his  herd,  are  covered  by  an 
extraordinary  profusion  of  a  flowing  beard-like  lichen  of 
unusual  length, — the  lichen  calicarus  (or,  according  to 
modern  botanists,  JKamallna  scopulorum),  in  which  they 
look  like  an  assemblage  of  ancient  Druids,  mysteriously 
stern  and  invincibly  silent  and  shaggy  as  the  bard  of  Gray, 
when 

"Loose  his  heard  r.nd  hoaiy  hair 
Streamed  like  a  meteor  on  the  troubled  air." 

The  day  was  perhaps  too  sunny  and  clear  for  seeing  the 
Standing  Stones  to  the  best  possible  advantage.  They 
could  not  be  better  placed  than  on  their  flat  promontories, 
surrounded  by  the  broad  plane  of  an  extensive  lake,  in  a 
waste,  lonely,  treeless  country,  that  presents  no  bold,  com- 
peting features  to  divert  attention  from  them  as  the  great 
central  objects  of  the  landscape;  but  the  gray  of  the  morn- 
ing, or  an  atmosphere  of  fog  and  vapor,  would  have  asso- 
ciated better  with  the  mystic  obscurity  of  their  history, 
their  shaggy  forms,  and  their  livid  tints,  than  the  glare  of 
a  cloudless  sun,  that  brought  out  in  hard,  clear  relief  their 
rude  outlines,  and  gave  to  each  its  sharp  dark  patch  of 
shadow.  Gray-colored  objects,  when  tall  and  imposing, 
but  of  irregular  form,  are  seen  always  to  most  advantage 
in  an  uncertain  light,  —  in  fog  or  frost-rime,  or  under  a 
scowling  sky,  or,  as  Parnell  well  expresses  it,  "  amid  the 
living  gleams  of  night."  They  appeal,  if  I  may  so  express 
myself,  to  the  sentiment  of  the  ghostly  and  the  spectral, 
and  demand  at  least  a  partial  envelopment  of  the  obscure. 
Burns,  with  the  true  tact  of  the  genuine  poet,  develops  the 
sentiment  almost  instinctively  in  an  exquisite  stanza  in  one 
of  his  less-known  songs,  "The  Posey,"  — 


RAMBLES   OF  A   GEOLOGIST.  489 

''  The  hawthorn  I  will  pu',  wi'  its  locks  o'  siller  gray, 
Where,  like  an  aged  man,  it  stands  at  break  o'  day." 

Scott,  too,  in  describing  these  very  stones,  chooses  the 
early  morning  as  the  time  in  which  to  exhibit  them,  when 
they  "  stood  in  the  gray  light  of  the  dawning,  like  the 
phantom  forms  of  antediluvian  giants,  who,  shrouded  in 
the  habiliments  of  the  dead,  come  to  revisit,  by  the  pale 
light,  the  earth  which  they  had  plagued  with  their  op- 
pression, and  polluted  by  their  sins,  till  they  brought  down 
upon  it  the  vengeance  of  long-suffering  heaven."  On 
another  occasion  he  introduces  them  as  "glimmering,  a 
grayish  Avhite,  in  the  rising  sun,  and  projecting  far  to  the 
westward  their  long  gigantic  shadows."  And  Malcolm,  in 
the  exercise  of  a  similar  faculty  with  that  of  Burns  and  of 
Scott,  surrounds  them,  in  his  description,  with  a  somewhat 
similar  atmosphere  of  partial  dimness  and  obscurity :  — 

"  The  hoary  rocks,  of  giant  size, 
That  o'er  the  land  in  circles  rise, 
Of  which  tradition  may  not  tell, 
Fit  circles  for  the  wizard's  spell, 
Seen  far  amidst  the  scolding  storm, 
Seem  each  a  tall  and  phantom  form, 
As  hurrying  vapors  o'er  them  flee, 
Frowning  in  grim  security, 
While,  like  a  dread  voice  from  the  past, 
Around  them  moans  the  autumnal  blast." 

There  exist  curious  analogies  between  the  earlier  stages  of 
society  and  the  more  immature  periods  of  life,  —  between 
the  savage  and  the  child ;  and  the  huge  circle  of  Stennis 
seems  suggestive  of  one  of  these.  It  is  considerably  more 
than  four  hundred  feet  in  diameter,  and  the  stones  which, 
compose  it,  varying  from  three  to  fourteen  feet  in  height, 
must  have  been  originally  from  thirty-five  to  forty  in  num- 
ber, though  only  sixteen  now  remain  erect.  A  mound  and 


490  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

fosse,  still  distinctly  traceable,  run  round  the  whole;  and 
there  are  several  mysterious-looking  tumuli  outside,  bulky 
enough  to  remind  one  of  the  lesser  morains  of  the  geologist. 

CJ  O  O 

But  the  circle,  notwithstanding  its  imposing  magnitude,  is 
but  a  huge  child's  house,  after  all,  —  one  of  those  circles  of 
stones  which  children  lay  down  on  their  village  green,  and 
then,  in  the  exercise  of  that  imaginative  faculty  which  dis- 
tinguishes between  the  young  of  the  human  animal  and 
those  of  every  other  creature,  convert,  by  a  sort  of  conven- 
tionalism, into  a  church  or  dwelling-house,  within  which 
they  seat  themselves,  and  enact  their  imitations  of  their 
seniors,  whether  domestic  or  ecclesiastical.  The  circle  of 
Stennis  was  a  circle,  say  the  antiquaries,  devoted  to  the  sun. 
The  group  of  stones  on  the  southern  promontory  of  the  lake 
formed  but  a  half-circle,  and  it  was  a  half-circle  dedicated  to 
the  moon.  To  the  circular  sun  the  great  rude  children  of 
an  immature  age  of  the  world  had  laid  down  a  circle  of 
stones  on  the  one  promontory ;  to  the  moon,  in  her  half- 
orbed  state,  they  had  laid  down  a  half-circle  on  the  other ; 
and  in  propitiating  these  material  deities,  to  whose  standing 
in  the  old  Scandinavian  worship  the  names  of  our  Sunday 
and  Jfonday  still  testify,  they  employed  in  their  respective 
inclosures,  in  the  exercise  of  a  wild  unregulated  fancy,  un- 
couth irrational  rites,  the  extremeness  of  whose  folly  was  in 
some  measure  concealed  by  the  horrid  exquisiteness  of  their 
cruelty.  "We  are  still  in  the  nonage  of  the  species,  and  see 
human  society  sowing  its  wild  oats  in  a  thousand  various 
ways,  very  absurdly  often,  and  often  very  wickedly;  but 
matters  seem  to  have  been  greatly  worse  when,  in  an  age 
still  more  immature,  the  grimly-bearded,  six-feet  children 
of  Orkney  were  laying  down  their  stone-circles  on  the  green. 
Sir  Walter,  in  the  parting  scene  between  Cleveland  and 
Minna  Troil,  which  he  describes  as  having  taken  place  amid 
the  lesser  group  of  stones,  refers  to  an  immense  slab  "lying 
flat  and  prostrate  in  the  middle  of  the  others,  supported  by 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  491 

short  pillars,  of  which  some  relics  are  still  visible,"  and 
Avhich  is  regarded  as  the  sacrificial  stone  of  the  erection. 
"  It  is  a  current  belief,"  says  Dr.  Hibbert,  in  an  elaborate 
paper  in  the  "Transactions  of  the  Scottish  Antiquaries," 
that  upon  this  stone  a  victim  of  royal  birth  was  immolated. 
Halfdan  the  Long-legged,  the  son  of  Harold  the  Fair-haired, 
in  punishment  for  the  aggressions  of  Orkney,  had  made  an 
unexpected  descent  upon  its  coasts,  and  acquired  possession 
of  the  Jarldom.  In  the  autumn  succeeding  Halfdan  was 
retorted  upon,  and,  after  an  inglorious  contest,  betook  him- 
self to  a  place  of  concealment,  from  which  he  was  the  fol- 
lowing morning  unlodged,  and  instantly  doomed  to  the  Asse. 
Einar,  tho  Jarl  of  Orkney,  with  his  sword  carved  the  cap- 
tive's back  into  the  form  of  an  eagle,  the  spine  being  longi- 
tudinally divided,  and  the  ribs  being  separated  by  a  trans- 
verse cut  as  far  as  the  loins.  He  then  extracted  the  lungs, 
and  dedicated  them  to  Odin  for  a  perpetuity  of  victory, 
singing  a  wild  song,  — '  I  am  revenged  for  the  slaughter  of 
Rognvalld :  this  have  the  Norna3  decreed.  In  my  fiording 
the  pillar  of  the  people  has  fallen.  Build  up  the  cairn,  ye 
active  youths,  for  victory  is  with  us.  From  the  stories  of 
the  sea-shore  will  I  pay  the  Long-legged  a  hard  seat.'" 
There  is  certainly  no  trace  to  be  detected,  in  this  dark  story, 
of  a  golden  age  of  the  world :  the  golden  age  is,  I  would 
fain  hope,  an  age  yet  to  come.  There  at  least  exists  no 
evidence  that  it  is  an  age  gone  by.  It  will  be  the  full- 
grown  manly  age  of  the  world  when  the  race,  as  such,  shah1 
have  attained  to  their  years  of  discretion.  They  are  at 
present  in  their  froward  boyhood,  playing  at  the  mis- 
chievous games  of  war,  and  diplomacy,  and  stock-gambling, 
and  site-refusing,  and  it  is  not  quite  agreeable  for  quiet 
honest  people  to  be  living  amongst  them.  But  there  would 
be  nothing  gained  by  going  back  to  that  more  infantine 
state  of  society  in  which  the  Jarl  Einar  carved  into  a  red 
eagle  the  back  of  Halfdan  the  Long-legged. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

On  Horseback  —  A  pared  Moor — Smail  Landholders  —  Absorption  of  small 
holdings  in  England  and  Scotland  —  Division  of  Land  favorable  to  Civil  aud 
Religious  Rights  —  Favorable  to  social  Elevation  —  An  inland  Parish  —  The 
Landsman  aud  Lobster  —  Wild  Flowers  of  Orkney  —  Law  oi  Compensation 
illustrated  by  the  Tobacco  Plant  —  Poverty  tends  to  Productiveness  -  Illus- 
trated in  Ireland  —  Profusion  of  Ichthyolites  —  Orkney  a  land  of  Defunct 
Fishes  —  Sandwick  —  A  Collection  of  Coccostean  Flags  —  A  Quarry  full  of 
Heads  of  Dipteri — The  Bergil,  or  Striped  "Wrasse — Its  Resemblance  to  the 
Dipterus  —  Poverty  of  the  Flora  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  —  No  true  Coniferous 
Wood  in  the  Orkney  Flagstones  —  Departure  for  Hoy  —  The  intelligent  Boat- 
man —  Story  of  the  Orkney  Fisherman. 

WHILE  yet  lingering  amid  the  Standing  Stones,  I  was 
joined  by  Mr.  Garson,  who  had  obligingly  ridden  a  good 
many  miles  to  meet  me,  and  now  insisted  that  I  should 
mount  and  1'ide  in  turn,  while  he  walked  by  my  side,  that  I 
might  be  fresh,  he  said,  for  the  exploratory  ramble  of  the 
evening.  I  could  have  ventured  more  readily  on  taking  the 
command  of  a  vessel  than  of  a  horse,  and  with  feMrer  fears 
of  mutiny ;  but  mount  I  did ;  and  the  horse,  a  discreet  ani- 
mal, finding  he  was  to  have  matters  very  much  his  own 
way,  got  upon  honor  with  me,  and  exerted  himself  to  such 
purpose  that  we  did  not  fall  greatly  more  than  a  hundred 
yards  behind  Mr.  Garsou.  We  ti'aversed  in  our  journey  a 
long  dreary  moor,  so  entirely  ruined,  like  those  Avhich  I  had 
seen  on  the  previous  day,  by  belonging  to  everybody  in 
general,  as  to  be  no  longer  of  the  slightest  use  to  anybody 
in  particular.  The  soil  seems  to  have  been  naturally 
poor ;  but  it  must  have  taken  a  good  deal  of  spoiling 
to  render  it  the  sterile,  verdureless  waste  it  is  now ;  for 
even  where  it  had  been  poorest,  I  found  that  in  the  island- 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  493 

like  appropriated  patches  by  which  it  is  studded,  it  at  least 
bears,  what  it  has  long  ceased  to  bear  elsewhere,  a  con- 
tinuous covering  of  green  sward.  But  if  disposed  to  quarrel 
with  the  commons  of  Orkney,  I  found  in  close  neighborhood 
with  them  that  with  which  I  could  have  no  quarrel, — nu- 
merous small  properties  farmed  by  the  proprietors,  and 
forming,  in  most  instances,  farms  by  no  means  very  large. 
There  are  parishes  in  this  part  of  the  mainland  divided 
among  from  sixty  to  eighty  landowners. 

A  nearly  similar  state  of  things  seems  to  have  obtained 
in  Scotland  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  previous  one.  I  am 
acquainted  with  old  churchyards  in  the  north  of  Scotland 
that  contain  the  burying-grounds  of  from  six  to  ten  landed 
proprietors,  whose  lands  are  now  merged  into  single  pro- 
perties. And,  in  reading  the  biographies  of  our  old  cove- 
nanting ministers,  I  have  often  remarked  as  curious,  and 
as  bearing  in  the  same  line,  that  no  inconsiderable  propor- 
tion of  their  number  were  able  to  retire,  in  times  of 
persecution,  to  their  own  little  estates.  It  was  during  the 
disastrous  wars  of  the  French  Revolution, — wars  from  the 
effects  of  which  Great  Britain  will,  I  fear,  never  fully  re- 
cover, —  that  the  smaller  holdings  were  finally  absorbed. 
About  twenty  years  ere  the  war  began,  the  lands  of  Eng- 
land were  parcelled  out  among  no  fewer  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  families;  before  the  peace  of  1815,  they 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  thirty-two  thousand.  In  less 
than  half  a  century,  that  base  of  actual  proprietorship  on 
which  the  landed  interest  of  any  country  must  ever  find 
its  surest  standing,  had  contracted  in  England  to  less  than 
one-seventh  its  former  extent.  In  Scotland  the  absorption 
of  the  great  bulk  of  the  lesser  properties  seems  to  have 
taken  place  somewhat  earlier ;  but  in  it  also  the  revolu- 
tionary war  appears  to  have  given  them  the  final  blow; 
42 


494  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

and  the  more  extensive  proprietors  of  the  kingdom  ai-3 
assuredly  all  the  less  secure  in  consequence  of  their  extinc- 
tion. They  were  the  smaller  stones  in  the  wall,  that  gave 
firmness  in  the  setting  to  the  larger,  and  jammed  them  fast 
within  those  safe  limits  determined  by  the  line  and  plum- 
met, which  it  is  ever  perilous  to  overhang.  Very  extensive 
territorial  properties,  wherever  they  exist,  create  almost 
necessarily  —  human  nature  being  what  it  is  —  a  species 
of  despotism  more  oppressive  than  even  that  of  great  un- 
representative governments.  It  used  to  be  remarked  on 
the  Continent,  that  there  was  always  less  liberty  in  petty 
principalities,  where  the  eye  of  the  ruler  was  ever  on  his 
subjects,  than  under  the  absolute  monarchies.*  And  in  a 
country  such  as  ours,  the  accumulation  of  landed  property 
in  the  hands  of  comparatively  a  few  individuals  has  the 
effect  often  of  bringing  the  territorial  privileges  of  the 

*  There  is  a  very  admirable  remark  to  this  effect  in  the  "  Travelling 
Memorandums  "  of  the  late  Lord  Gardenstone,  which,  as  the  work  lias 
been  long  out  of  print,  and  is  now  scarce,  may  be  new  to  many  of  my 
readers :  "  It  is  certain,  and  demonstrated  by  the  experience  of  ages  and 
nations,"  says  his  Lordship,  in  referring  to  the  old  principalities  of  France, 
"  that  the  government  of  petty  princes  is  less  favorable  to  the  security 
and  interests  of  society  than  the  government  of  monarchs,  who  possess 
great  and  extensive  territories.  The  race  of  great  monarchs  cannot  pos- 
sibly preserve  a  safe  and  undisturbed  state  of  government,  without  many 
delegations  of  power  and  office  to  men  of  approved  abilities  and  practical 
knowledge,  who  arc  subject  to  complaint  during  their  administration,  and 
responsible  when  it  is  at  an  end;  or  yet  without  an  established  system  of 
laws  and  regulations;  so  that  no  inconsiderable  degree  of  security  and  lib- 
erty to  the  subject  is  almost  inseparable  from,  and  essential  to,  the  sub- 
sistence and  duration  of  a  great  monarchy.  But  it  is  easy  for  petty  princes 
to  practise  an  arbitrary  and  irregular  exercise  of  power,  by  which  their 
people  are  reduced  to  a  condition  of  miserable  slavery.  Indeed,  very  few 
of  them,  in  the  course  of  ages,  are  capable  of  conceiving  any  other  means 
of  maintaining  the  ostentatious  state,  the  luxurious  and  indolent  pride, 
which  they  mistake  for  greatness.  I  heartily  wish  that  this  observation 
and  censure  may  not,  in  some  instances,  be  applicable  to  great  landed 
proprietors  in  some  parts  of  Britain."  — Travelling  Memorandums,  vol. 
i-  p.  123.  1702. 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  495 

great  landowner  into  a  state  of  antagonism  with  the  civil 
and  religious  rights  of  the  people,  that  cannot  be  other 
than  perilous  to  the  landowner  himself.  In  a  district 
divided,  like  Orkney,  among  many  OAvners,  a  whole  coun- 
try-side could  not  be  shut  up  against  its  people  by  some 
ungenerous  or  intolerant  proprietor,  —  greatly  at  his  own 
risk  and  to  his  own  hurt,  —  as  in  the  case  of  Glen  Tilt  or 
the  Grampians;  nor,  when  met  for  purposes  of  public  wor- 
ship, could  the  population  of  a  parish  be  chased  from  off  its 
bare  moors,  at  his  instance,  by  the  constable  or  the  sheriff- 
officer,  to  worship  God  agreeably  to  their  consciences  amid 
the  mire  of  a  cross-road,  or  on  the  bare  sea-beach  uncov- 
ered by  the  ebb  of  the  tide.  The  smaller  properties  of 
the  country,  too,  served  admirably  as  stepping-stones,  by 
which  the  proprietors  or  their  children,  when  possessed  of 
energy  and  intellect,  could  mount  to  a  higher  walk  of 
society.  Here  beside  me,  for  instance,  was  my  friend  Mr. 
Garson,  a  useful  and  much-esteemed  minister  of  religion 
in  his  native  district ;  while  his  brother,  a  medical  man  of 
superior  parts,  was  fast  rising  into  extensive  practice  in 
the  neighboring  town.  They  had  been  prepared  for  their 
respective  professions  by  a  classical  education;  and  yet 
the  stepping-stone  to  positions  in  society  at  once  so  im- 
portant and  so  respectable  was  simply  one  of  the  smaller 
holdings  of  Orkney,  derived  to  them  as  the  descendants 
of  one  of  the  old  Scandinavian  Udallcrs,  and  which  fell 
short,  I  was  informed,  of  a  hundred  a-year. 

Mr.  Garson's  dwelling,  to  which  I  was  welcomed  with 
much  hospitality  by  his  mother  and  sisters,  occupies  the 
middle  of  an  inclined  hollow  or  basin,  so  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  low,  moory  hills,  that  at  no  point,  —  though 
the  radius  of  the  prospect  averages  from  four  to  six  miles, 
—  does  it  command  a  view  of  the  sea.  I  scarce  expected 
being  introduced  in  Orkney  to  a  scene  in  which  the  trav- 


490  KAiJBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

eller  could  so  thoroughly  forget  that  he  was  on  an  island. 
Of  the  parish  of  Hurray,  which  borders  on  Mr.  Garson's 
property,  no  part  touches  the  sea-coast ;  and  the  people  of 
the  parish  are  represented  by  their  neighbors,  who  pride 
themselves  upon  their  skill  as  sailors  and  boatmen,  as  a 
race  of  lubberly  landsmen,  unacquainted  with  nautical 
matters,  and  ignorant  of  the  ocean  and  its  productions. 
A  Harray  man  is  represented,  in  one  of  their  stories,  as 
entering  into  a  compact  of  mutual  forbearance  with  a  lob- 
ster, —  to  him  a  monster  of  unknown  powers  and  formida- 
ble proportions,  — which  he  had  at  first  attempted  to  cap- 
ture, but  which  had  shown  fight,  and  had  nearly  captured 
him  in  turn.  "Weel,  weel,  let  a-be  for  let  a-be,"  he  is 
made  to  say ;  "  if  thou  does  na  clutch  me  in  thy  grips,  I  'se 
no  clutch  thee  in  mine."  It  is  to  this  primitive  parish 
that  David  Vedder,  the  sailor-poet  of  Orkney,  refers,  in 
his  "  Orcadian  Sketches,"  as  "  celebrated  over  the  whole 
archipelago  for  the  peculiarities  of  its  inhabitants,  their 
singular  manners  and  habits,  their  uncouth  appearance, 
and  homely  address.  Being  the  most  landward  district  in 
Pomona,"  he  adds,  "  and  consequently  having  little  inter- 
course with  strangers,  it  has  become  the  stronghold  of 
many  ancient  customs  and  superstitions,  which  modern 
innovation  has  pushed  off  from  their  pedestals  in  almost 
all  the  other  parts  of  the  island.  The  permanency  of  its 
population,  too,  is  mightily  in  favor  of  '  old  use  and  wont,' 
as  it  is  almost  entirely  divided  amongst  a  class  of  men 
yclept  pickle,  or  petty  lairds,  each  ploughing  his  own  fields 
and  reaping  his  own  crops,  much  in  the  manner  their 
great-great-grandfathers  did  in  the  days  of  Earl  Patrick. 
And  such  is  the  respect  which  they  entertain  for  their 
hereditary  beliefs,  that  many  of  them  are  said  still  to  cast 
a  lingering  look,  not  unmixed  with  reverence,  on  certain 
spots  held  sacred  by  their  Scandinavian  ancestors." 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  497 

After  an  early  dinner  I  set  out  for  the  barony  of  Birsay, 
in  the  northern  extremity  of  the  mainland,  accompanied 
by  Mr.  Garson,  and  passed  for  several  miles  over  a  some- 
what dreary  country,  bare,  sterile,  and  brown,  studded  by 
cold,  broad,  treeless  lakes,  and  thinly  mottled  by  groups 
of  gray,  diminutive  cottages,  that  do  not  look  as  if  there 
was  much  of  either  plenty  or  comfort  inside.  But  after 
surmounting  the  hills  that  form  the  northern  side  of  the 
interior  basin,  I  was  sensible  of  a  sudden  improvement  on 
the  face  of  the  country.  Where  the  land  slopes  towards 
the  sea,  the  shaggy  heath  gives  place  to  a  green  luxuriant 
herbage  ;  and  the  frequent  patches  of  corn  seem  to  rejoice 
in  a  more  genial  soil.  The  lower  slopes  of  Orkney  are  sin- 
gularly rich  in  wild  flowers,  —  richer  by  many  degrees 
than  the  fat  loamy  meadows  of  England.  They  resemble 
gaudy  pieces  of  carpeting,  as  abundant  in  petals  as  in 
leaves :  their  luxuriant  blow  of  red  and  white,  blue  and 
yellow,  seems  as  if  competing,  in  the  extent  of  surface 
which  it  occupies,  with  their  general  ground  of  green.  I 
have  remarked  a  somewhat  similar  luxuriance  of  wild 
flowers  in  the  more  sheltered  hollows  of  the  bleak  north- 
western coasts  of  Scotland.  There  is  little  that  is  rare  to 
be  found  among  these  last,  save  that  a  few  Alpine  plants 
may  be  here  and  there  recognized  as  occurring  at  a  lower 
level  than  elsewhere  in  Britain ;  but  the  vast  profusion  of 
blossoms  borne  by  species  conimon  to  the  greater  part  of 
the  kingdom  imparts  to  them  an  apparently  novel  charac- 
ter. We  may  detect,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  in  this  sin- 
gular profusion,  both  in  Orkney  and  the  bleaker  districts 
of  the  mainland  of  Scotland,  the  operation  of  a  law  not 
less  influential  in  the  animal  than  in  the  vegetable  world, 
which,  when  hardship  presses  upon  the  life  of  the  individ- 
ual shrub  or  quadruped,  so  as  to  threaten  its  vitality,  ren- 
ders it  fruitful  in  behalf  of  its  species.  I  have  seen  the 
42* 


498  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

principle  strikingly  exemplified  in  the  common  tobacco 
plant,  when  reared  in  a  northern  country  in  the  open  air. 
Year  after  year  it  continued  to  degenerate,  and  to  exhibit 
a  smaller  leaf  and  a  shorter  stem,  until  the  successors  of 
what  in  the  first  year  of  trial  had  been  vigorous  plants  of 
from  three  to  four  feet  in  height,  had  in  the  sixth  or  eighth 
become  mere  weeds  of  scarce  as  many  inches.  But  while 
the  more  flourishing,  and  as  yet  undegenerate  plant,  had 
merely  borne  a-top  a  few  florets,  which  produced  a  small 
quantity  of  exceedingly  minute  seeds,  the  stunted  weed, 
its  descendant,  was  so  thickly  covered  over  in  its  season 
with  its  pale  yellow  bells,  as  to  present  the  appearance  of 
a  nosegay ;  and  the  seeds  produced  were  not  only  bulkier 
in  the  mass,  but  also  individually  of  much  greater  size. 
The  tobacco  had  grown  productive  in  proportion  as  it  had 
degenerated  and  become  poor.  In  the  common  scurvy 
grass,  too,  remarkable,  with  some  other  plants,  as  I  have 
already  had  occasion  to  mention,  for  taking  its  place 
among  both  the  productions  of  our  Alpine  heights  and  of 
our  sea-shores,  it  will  be  found  that  in  proportion  as  its 
habitat  proves  ungenial,  and  its  stems  and  leaves  become 
dwarfish  and  thin,  its  little  white  cruciform  floAvers 
increase,  till,  in  localities  where  it  barely  exists,  as  if  on 
the  edge  of  extinction,  we  find  the  entire  plant  forming  a 
dense  bundle  of  seed-vessels,  each  charged  to  the  full  with 
seed.  And  in  the  gay  meadows  of  Orkney,  crowded  with 
a  vegetation  that  approaches  its  northern  limit  of  produc- 
tion, we  detect  what  seems  to  be  the  same  principle, 
chronically  operative ;  and  hence,  it  would  seem,  their 
extraordinary  gaiety.  Their  richly-blossoming  plants  are 
the  poor  productive  Irish  of  the  vegetable  world ;  *  for 

*Thc  exciting  effects  of  a  poor  soil,  or  climate,  or  of  severe  usage,  on 
the  productive  powers  of  various  vegetable  species,  have  been  long  and 
often  remarked.  Flavel  describes,  in  one  of  his  ingenious  emblems,  illus- 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

Doubleday  seems  to  be  quite  in  the  right  in  holding  that 
the  law  extends  to  not  only  the  inferior  animals,  but  to 
our  own  species  also.  The  lean,  ill-fed  sow  and  rabbit 
rear,  it  has  been  long  known,  a  greatly  more  numerous 
progeny  than  the  same  animals  when  well  cared  for  and 
fat;  and  every  horse  and  cattle  breeder  knows,  that  to 
over-feed  his  animals  proves  a  sure  mode  of  rendering 
them  sterile.  The  sheep,  if  tolerably  well  pastured,  brings 

trative  of  the  influence  of  affliction  on  the  Christian,  an  orchard  tree, 
which  had  been  beaten  with  sticks  and  stones,  till  it  presented  a  sorely 
stunted  and  mutilated  appearance;  but  which,  while  the  fairer  and  more 
vigorous  trees  around  it  were  rich  in  only  leaves,  was  laden  with  fruit,  — 
a  direct  consequence,  it  is  shown,  of  the  hard  treatment  to  which  it  had 
been  subjected.  T  have  heard'  it  told  in  a  northern  village,  as  a  curious 
anecdote,  that  a  large  pear  tree,  which  during  a  vigorous  existence  of 
nearly  fifty  years,  had  borne  scarce  a  single  pear,  had,  when  in  a  state  of 
decay,  and  for  a  few  years  previous  to  its  death,  borne  immense  crops  of 
from  two  to  three  bolls  each  season.  And  the  skilful  gardener  not  un- 
frequently  avails  himself  of  the  principle  on  which  both  phenomena  seem 
to  have  occurred,  —  that  exhibited  in  the  beaten  and  that  in  the  decaying 
tree,  —  in  rendering  his  barren  plants  fruitful.  He  has  recourse  to  it  even 
when  merely  desirous  of  ascertaining  the  variety  of  pear  or  apple  which 
some  thriving  sapling,  slow  in  bearing,  is  yet  to  produce.  Selecting  some 
bough  which  may  be  conveniently  lopped  away  without  destroying  the 
symmetry  of  the  tree,  he  draws  his  knife  across  the  bark,  and  inflicts  on 
it  a  wound,  from  which,  though  death  may  not  ensue  for  some  two  or 
three  twelvemonths,  it  cannot  ultimately  recover.  Next  spring  the 
wounded  branch  is  found  to  bear  its  bunches  of  blossoms;  the  blossoms 
set  into  fruit ;  and  while  in  the  other  portions  of  the  plant  all  is  vigorous 
and  ban-en  as  before,  the  dying  part  of  it,  as  if  sobered  by  the  near  pros- 
pect of  dissolution,  is  found  fulfilling  the  proper  end  of  its  existence. 
Soil  and  climate,  too,  exert,  it  has  been  often  remarked,  a  similar  influ- 
ence. In  the  united  parishes  of  Kirkmichael  and  Culicuden,  in  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood  of  Cromarty,  much  of  the  soil  is  cold  and  poor, 
and  the  exposure  ungenial;  and  "in  most  parts,  where  hardwood  has 
been  planted,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sage  of  Resolis,  in  his  "  Statistical  Ac- 
count," "it  is  stinted  in  its  growth,  and  bark-bound.  Comparatively 
young  trees  of  ash,"  he  shrewdly  adds,  "  are  covered  with  seed,  —  an  almost 
infallible  sign  that  their  natural  growth  is  checked.  The  leaves,  too,  fall  off 
about  the  beginning  of  September." 


500  RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

forth  only  a  single  lamb  at  a  birth;  but  if  half-starve;]  r.ivl 
lean,  the 'chances  are  that  it  may  bring  forth  tAvo  or  three. 
And  so  it  is  also  Avith  the  greatly  higher  human  race. 
Place  them  in  circumstances  of  degradation  and  hardship 
so  extreme  as  almost  to  threaten  their  existence  as  indi- 
viduals, and  they  increase,  as  if  in  behalf  of  the  species, 
Avith  a  rapidity  Avithout  precedent  in  circumstances  of 
greater  comfort.  The  aristocratic  families  of  a  country  are 
continually  running  out;  and  it  requires  frequent  creations 
to  keep  up  the  House  of  Lords ;  Avhile  our  poor  people 
seem  increasing  in  some  districts  in  almost  the  mathemati- 
cal ratio.  The  county  of  Sutherland  is  already  more  pop- 
ulous than  it  Avas  previous  to  the  great  clearings.  In 
Skye,  though-  fully  two-thirds  of  the  population  emigrated 
early  in  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century,  a  single  genei-a- 
tion  had  scarce  passed  ere  the  gap  Avas  completely  filled ; 
and  miserable  Ireland,  had  the  human  family  no  other 
breeding-place  or  nursery,  Avould  of  itself  be  sufficient  in  a 
veiy  few  ages  to  people  the  world. 

"We  returned,  taking  in  our  way  the  cliffs  of  Marwick 
Head,  in  which  I  detected  a  feAv  scattered  plates  and 
scales,  and  Avhich,  like  nine-tenths  of  the  rocks  of  Orkney, 
belong  to  the  great  flagstone  division  of  the  formation.  I 
found  the  drystone  fences  on  Mr.  Garson's  property  still 
richer  in  detached  fossil  fragments  than  the  cliffs ;  but 
there  are  few  erections  in  the  island  that  do  not  inclose  in 
their  Avails  portions  of  the  organic.  We  find  ichthyolite 
remains  in  the  flagstones  laid  bare  along  the  wayside,  —  in 
every  heap  of  road-metal,  —  in  the  bottom  of  every  stream, 
—  in  almost  every  cottage  and  fence.  Orkney  is  a  land 
of  defunct  fishes,  and  contains  in  its  rocky  folds  more  indi- 
viduals of  the  Avaning  ganoid  family  than  are  now  to  be 
found  in  all  the  existing  seas,  lakes,  and  rivers  of  the 
world.  I  enjoyed  in  a  snug  upper  room  a  delectable 


RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  501 

night's  rest,  after  a  day  of  prime  exercise,  prolonged  till  it 
just  touched  on  toil,  and  again  experienced,  on  looking 
out  in  the  morning  on  the  wide  flat  basin  around,  a  feeling 
somewhat  akin  to  wonder,  that  Orkney  should  possess  a 
scene  at  once  so  extensive  and  so  exclusively  inland. 

Towards  mid-day  I  walked  on  to  the  parish  manse  of 
Sandwick,  armed  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  its 
inmate,  the  Rev.  Charles  Clouston,  —  a  gentleman  whose 
descriptions  of  the  Orkneys,  in  the  very  complete  and 
tastefully  written  Guide-Book  of  the  Messrs.  Anderson  of 
Inverness,  and  of  his  own  parish  in  the  "  Statistical  Ac- 
count of  Scotland,"  had,  both  from  the  high  literary  abil- 
ity and  the  amount  of  scientific  acquirement  which  they 
exhibit,  rendered  me  desirous  to  see.  I  was  politely 
received,  though  my  visit  must  have  been,  as  I  afterwards 
ascertained,  at  a  rather  inconvenient  time.  It  was  now 
late  in  the  week,  and  the  coming  Sabbath  was  that  of  the 
communion  in  the  parish ;  but  Mr.  Clouston  obligingly 
devoted  to  me  at  least  an  hour,  and  I  found  it  a  very  pro- 
fitable one.  He  showed  me  a  collection  of  flags,  with 
which  he  intended  constructing  a  grotto,  and  which  con- 
tained numerous  specimens  of  Coccosteus,  that  he  had 
exposed  to  the  weather,  to  bring  out  the  fine  blue  efflores- 
cence,—  a  phosphate  of  iron  which  forms  on  the  surface 
of  the  plates.  They  reminded  me,  from  their  peculiar 
style  of  coloring,  and  the  grotesqueness  of  their  forms,  of 
the  blue  figuring  on  pieces  of  buif-colored  china,  and 
seemed  to  be  chiefly  of  one  species,  very  abundant  in  Ork- 
ney, the  Coccosteus  decipiens.  We  next  walked  out  to 
see  a  quarry  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  manse,  remarkable 
for  containing  in  immense  abundance  the  heads  of  Dipteri, 
—  many  of  them  in  a  good  state  of  keeping,  with  all  the 
multitudinous  plates  to  which  they  owe  their  pseudo-name, 
Polyphractus,  in  their  original  places,  and  bearing  unworn 


502  RAMBLES   OF  A    GEOLOGIST. 

and  untarnished  their  mimite  carvings  and  delicate  enamel, 
but  existing  in  eveiy  case  as  mere  detached  heads.  I 
found  three  of  them  lying  in  one  little  slaty  fragment  of 
two  and  a  half  inches  by  four,  which  I  brought  along  with 
me.  Mr.  Clouston  had  never  seen  the  curious  arrange- 
ment of  palatal  plates  and  teeth  which  distinguishes  the 
Dipterus;  and,  drawing  his  attention  to  it  in  an  ill-pre- 
served specimen  which  I  found  in  the  coping  of  his  glebe- 
wall,  I  restored,  in  a  rude  pencil  sketch,  the  two  angular 
patches  of  teeth  that  radiate  from  the  elegant  dart-head  in 
the  centre  of  the  palate,  with  the  rhomboidal  plate  behind. 
"  We  have  a  fish,  not  uncommon  on  the  rocky  coasts  of 
this  part  of  the  country,"  he  said,  —  "  the  Bergil  or  Striped 
Wrasse  (Labras  Balanus\  —  which  bears  exactly  such 
patches  of  angular  teeth  in  its  palate.  They  adhere 
strongly  together;  and,  when  found  in  our  old  Picts' 
houses,  which  occasionally  happens,  they  have  been 
regarded  by  some  of  our  local  antiquaries  as  artificial,  — 
an  opinion  which  I  have  had  to  correct,  though  it  seems 
not  improbable  that,  from  their  gem-like  appearance,  they 
may  have  been  used  in  a  rude  age  as  ornaments.  I  think 
I  can  show  you  one  disinterred  here  some  years  ago."  It 
interested  me  to  find,  from  Mr.  Clouston's  specimens  that 
the  palatal  grinders  of  this  recent  fish  of  Orkney  very 
nearly  resemble  those  of  its  Dipterus  of  the  Old  Red 
Sandstone.  The  group  is  of  nearly  the  same  size  in  the 
modern  as  in  the  ancient  fish,  and  presents  the  same  angu- 
lar form ;  but  the  individual  teeth  are  more  strongly  set  in 
the  Bergil  than  in  the  Dipterus,  and  radiate  less  regularly 
from  the  inner  rectangular  point  of  the  angle  to  its  base 
outside.  I  could  fain  have  procured  an  Orkney  Bergil,  in 
order  to  determine  the  general  pattern  of  its  palatal  denti- 
tion with  what  is  very  peculiar  in  the  more  ancient  fish,  — 
the  form  of  the  lower  jaw;  and  to  ascertain  farther,  from 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  503 

the  contents  of  the  stomach,  the  species  of  shell-fish  or 
crustaceans  on  which  it  feeds ;  but,  though  by  no  means 
rare  in  Orkney,  where  it  is  occasionally  used  as  food,  I 
was  unable,  during  my  short  stay,  to  possess  myself  of  a 
specimen. 

Mr.  Clouston  had,  I  found,  chiefly  directed  his  palaeonto- 
logical  inquiries  on  the  vegetable  remains  of  the  flagstones, 
as  the  department  of  the  science  in  which,  in  relation  to 
Orkney,  most  remained  to  be  done ;  and  his  collection  of 
these  is  the  most  considerable  in  the  number  of  its  speci- 
mens that  I  have  yet  seen.  It,  however,  serves  but  to 
show  how  very  extreme  is  the  poverty  of  the  flora  of  the 
Lower  Old  Red  Sandstone.  The  numerous  fishes  of  the 
period  seem  to  have  inhabited  a  sea  little  more  various  in 
its  vegetation  than  in  its  molluscs.  Among  the  specimens 
of  Mr.  Clouston's  collection  I  could  detect  but  two  species 
of  plants, —  an  imperfectly  preserved  vegetable,  more  nearly 
resembling  a  club-moss  than  aught  I  have  seen,  and  a 
smooth-stemmed  fucoid,  existing  as  a  mere  coaly  film  on 
the  stone,  and  distinguished  chiefly  from  the  other  by  its 
sharp-edged,  well-defined  outline,  and  from  the  circum- 
stance that  its  stems  continue  to  retain  the  same  diameter 
for  a  considerable  distance,  and  this,  too,  after  throwing 
off  at  acute  angles  numerous  branches,  nearly  equal  in 
bulk  to  the  parent  trunk.  In  a  specimen  about  two  and  a 
half  feet  in  length,  which  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Mr. 
Dick  of  Thurso,  there  are  stems  continuous  throughout, 
that,  though  they  ramify  into  from  six  to  eight  branches 
in  that  space,  are  quite  as  thick  atop  as  at  bottom.  They 
are  the  remains,  in  all  probability,  of  a  long  flexible  fucoid, 
like  those  fucoids  of  the  intertropical  seas  that,  streaming 
slantwise  in  the  tide,  rise  not  unfrequently  to  the  surface 
in  fifteen  and  twenty  fathoms  water.  I  saw  among  Mr. 
Clouston's  specimens  no  such  lignite  as  the  fragment  of 


504  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

true  coniferous  wood  which  I  had  found  at  Cromarty  a 
few  years  previous,  and  which,  it  would  seem,  is  still 
unique  among  the  fossils  of  the  Old  Red  Sandstone.  In 
the  chart  of  the  Pacific  attached  to  the  better  editions  of 
"  Cook's  Voyages,"  there  are  several  entries  along  the  track 
of  the  great  navigator  that  indicate  where,  in  mid-ocean, 
trees,  or  fragments  of  trees,  had  been  picked  up.  The 
entries,  however,  are  but  few,  though  they  belong  to  all 
the  three  voyages  together :  if  I  remember  aright,  there 
are  only  five  entries  in  all,  —  two  in  the  Northern  and 
three  in  the  Southern  Pacific.  The  floating  tree,  at  a 
great  distance  from  land,  is  of  rare  occurrence  in  even  the 
present  scene  of  things,  though  the  breadth  of  land  be 
great,  and  ti'ees  numerous ;  and  in  the  times  of  the  Old 
Red  Sandstone,  when  probably  the  breadth  of  land  was 
not  great,  and  trees  not  numerous,  it  seems  to  have  been 
of  rarer  occurrence  still.  But  it  is  at  least  something  to 
know  that  in  this  early  age  of  the  world  trees  there  were. 
I  walked  on  to  Stromness,  and  on  the  following  morn- 
ing, that  of  Saturday,  took  boat  for  Hoy,  —  skirting,  on 
my  passage  out,  the  eastern  and  southern  shores  of  the 
intervening  island  of  Graemsay,  and,  on  the  passage  back 
again,  its  western  and  northern  shores.  The  boatman,  an 
intelligent  man,  —  one  of  the  teachers,  as  I  afterwards 
ascertained,  in  the  Free  Church  Sabbath-school, —  light- 
ened the  way  by  his  narratives  of  storm  and  wreck,  and  not 
a  few  interesting  snatches  of  natural  history.  There  is  no 
member  of  the  commoner  professions  with  whom  I  better 
like  to  meet  than  with  a  sensible  fisherman,  who  makes  a 
right  use  of  his  eyes.  The  history  of  fishes  is  still  very 
much  what  the  history  of  almost  all  animals  was  little 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  —  a  matter  of  mere  exter- 
nal description,  heavy  often  and  dry,  and  of  classification 
founded  exclusively  on  anatomical  details.  "We  have  still 


RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  505 

a  very  great  deal  to  learn  regarding  the  character,  habits 
and  instincts  of  these  denizens  of  the  deep,  —  much,  in 
short,  respecting  that  faculty  which  is  in  them  through 
which  their  natures  are  harmonized  to  the  inexorable  laws, 
and  they  continue  to  live  wisely  and  securely,  in  conse- 
quence, within  their  own  element,  when  man,  with  all  his 
reasoning  ability,  is  playing  strange  vagaries  in  his ;  —  a 
species  of  knowledge  this,  by  the  way,  which  constitutes  by 
far  the  most  valuable  part,  —  the  mental  department  of 
natural  history;  and  the  notes  of  the  intelligent  fisherman, 
gleaned  from  actual  observation,  have  frequently  enabled 
me'  to  fill  portions  of  the  wide  hiatus  in  the  history  of 
fishes  which  it  ought  of  right  to  occupy.  In  passing,  as 
we  toiled  along  the  Graemsay  coast,  the  ruins  of  a  solitary 
cottage,  the  boatman  furnished  us  with  a  few  details  of 
the  history  and  character  of  its  last  inmate,  an  Orkney 
fisherman,  that  would  have  furnished  admirable  materials 
for  one  of  the  darker  sketches  of  Crabbe.  He  was,  he 
said,  a  resolute,  unsocial  man,  not  devoid  of  a  dash  of 
reckless  humor,  and  remarkable  for  an  extraordinary  de- 
gree of  bodily  strength,  which  he  continued  to  retain 
unbroken  to  an  age  considerably  advanced,  and  which,  as 
he  rarely  admitted  of  a  companion  in  his  voyages,  enabled 
him  to  work  his  little  skiff  alone,  in  weather  when  even 
better  equipped  vessels  had  enough  ado  to  keep  the  sea. 
He  had  been  married  in  early  life  to  a  religiously-disposed 
woman,  a  member  of  some  dissenting  body;  but,  living 
with  him  in  the  little  island  of  Grasmsay,  separated  by  the 
sea  from  any  place  of  worship,  he  rarely  permitted  her  to 
see  the  inside  of  a  church.  At  one  time,  on  the  occasion 
ot  a  communion  Sabbath  in  the  neighboring  parish  of 
Stromness,  he  seemed  to  yield  to  her  entreaties,  and  got 
ready  his  yawl,  apparently  with  the  design  of  bringing  her 
across  the  Sound  to  the  town.  They  had,  however,  no 
43 


506  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

sooner  quitted  the  shore  than  he  sailed  off  to  a  green  little 
Ogygia  of  a  holm  in  the  neighborhood,  on  which,  revers- 
ing the  old  mythologic  story  of  Calypso  and  Ulysses,  he 
incarcerated  the  poor  woman  for  the  rest  of  the  day  till 
evening.  I  could  see,  from  the  broad  grin  with  which  the 
boatman  greeted  this  part  of  the  recital,  that  there  was, 
unluckily,  almost  fun  enough  in  the  trick  to  neutralize  the 
sense  of  its  barbarity.  The  unsocial  fisherman  lived  on, 
dreaded  and  disliked,  and  yet,  when  his  skiff  was  seen 
boldly  keeping  the  sea  in  the  face  of  a  freshening  gale, 
when  every  other  was  making  for  port,  or  stretching  out 
from  the  land  as  some  stormy  evening  was  falling,  not  a 
little  admired  also.  At  length,  on  a  night  of  fearful  tem- 
pest, the  skiff  was  marked  approaching  the  coast,  full  on 
an  iron-bound  promontory,  where  there  could  be  no  safe 
landing.  The  helm,  from  the  steadiness  of  her  course, 
seemed  fast  lashed,  and,  dimly  discernible  in  the  uncertain 
light,  the  solitarv  boatman  could  be  seen  sitting  erect  at 

O          *  •  O 

the  bows,  as  if  looking  out  for  the  shore.  But  as  his  little 
bark  came  shooting  inwards  on  the  long  roll  of  a  wave,  it 
was  found  that  there  was  no  speculation  in  his  stony* 
glance :  the  misanthropic  fisherman  was  a  cold  and  rigid 
corpse.  He  had  died  at  sea,  as  English  juries  emphatically 
express  themselves  in  such  cases,  under  "  the  visitation  of 
God." 


CHAPTER     XV. 

Hoy  —  Unique  Scenery  —  The  Dwarfie  Stone  of  Hoy  —  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Ac- 
count of  it  —  Its  Associations  —  Inscription  of  Names  —  George  Buchanan's 
Consolation  —  The  mythic  Carbuncle  of  the  Hill  of  Hoy  —  No  Fossils  at 
Hoy  —  Striking  Profile  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  on  the  Hill  of  Hoy  —  Sir  Walter, 
and  Shetland  and  Orkney  —  Originals  of  two  Characters  in  '•  The  Pirate  ?' — 
Bessie  Millie  —  Garden  of  Gow,  the  '•  Pirate  "  —  Childhood's  Scene  of  Byron's 

"  Torquil ''  —  The  Author's  Introduction  to  his  Sister A  German  Visitor 

—German  and  Scotch  Sabbath-keeping  habits  contrasted  —  Mr.  Watt's  Spec- 
imens of  Fossil  Remains  —  The  only  new  Organism  found  in  Orkney  —  Back 
to  Kirkwall  —  to  Wick  —  Vedder's  Ode  to  Orkney. 

WJE  landed  at  Hoy,  on  a  rocky  stretch  of  shore,  composed 
of  the  gray  flagstones  of  the  district.  They  spread  out 
here  in  front  of  the  tall  hills  composed  of  the  overlying 
sandstone,  in  a  green  undulating  platform,  resembling  a 
somewhat  uneven  esplanade  spread  out  in  front  of  a  steep 
rampart.  With  the  upper  deposit  a  new  style  of  scenery 
commences,  unique  in  these  islands:  the  hills,  bold  and 
abrupt,  rise  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  hundred  feet  over  the 
sea-level ;  and  the  valleys  by  which  they  are  traversed,  — 
no  mere  shallow  inflections  of  the  general  surface,  like  most 
of  the  other  valleys  of  Orkney,  —  are  of  profound  depth, 
precipitous,  imposing,  and  solitary.  The  sudden  change 
from  the  soft,  low,  and  comparatively  tame,  to  the  bold, 
stern,  and  high,  serves  admirably  to  show  how  much  the 
character  of  a  landscape  may  depend  on  the  formation  which 
composes  it.  A  walk  of  somewhat  less  than  two  miles 
brought  me  into  the  depths  of  a  brown,  shaggy  valley,  so 
profoundly  solitary,  that  it  does  not  contain  a  single  human 
habitation,  nor,  with  one  interesting  exception,  a  single  trace 


508  RAMBLES    OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

of  the  hand  of  man.  As  the  traveller  approaches  by  a  path 
somewhat  elevated,  in  order  to  avoid  the  peaty  bogs  of  the 
bottom,  along  the  slopes  of  the  northern  side  of  the  dell,  he 
sees,  amid  the  heath  below,  what  at  first  seems  to  be  a  rhom- 
boidal  piece  of  pavement  of  pale  Old  Red  Sandstone,  bear- 
ing atop  a  few  stunted  tufts  of  vegetation.  There  are  no 
neighboring  objects  of  a  known  character  by  which  to  esti- 
mate its  size ;  the  precipitous  hill-front  behind  is  more  than 
a  thousand  feet  in  height :  the  greatly  taller  Ward  Hill  of 
Hoy,  which  frowns  over  it  on  the  opposite  side,  is  at  least 
five  hundred  feet  higher ;  and,  dwarfed  by  these  giants,  it 
seems  a  mere  pavior's  flag,  mayhap  some  five  or  six  feet 
square,  by  from  eighteen  inches  to  two  feet  in  depth.  It  is 
only  on  approaching  it  within  a  few  yards  that  we  find  it 
to  be  an  enormous  stone,  nearly  thirty  feet  in  length  by 
almost  fifteen  feet  in  breadth,  and  in  some  places,  though  it 
thins,  wedge-like,  towards  one  of  the  edges,  more  than  six 
feet  in  thickness,  —  forming  altogether  such  a  mass  as  the 
quarrier  would  detach  from  the  solid  rock  to  form  the  archi- 
trave of  some  vast  gateway,  or  the  pediment  of  some  colossal 
statue.  A  cave-like  excavation,  nearly  three  feet  square, 
and  rather  more  than  seven  feet  in  depth,  opens  on  its  gray 
and  lichened  side.  The  excavation  is  widened  within,  along 
the  opposite  walls,  into  two  uncomfortably  short  beds,  very 
much  resembling  those  of  the  cabin  of  a  small  coasting  ves- 

o  o 

sel.  One  of  the  two  is  furnished  with  a  protecting  ledge 
and  a  pillow  of  stone,  hewn  out  of  the  solid  mass,  while  tho 
other,  which  is  some  five  or  six  inches  shorter  than  its  neigh- 
bor, and  presents  altogether  more  the  appearance  of  a  place 
of  penance  than  of  repose,  lacks  both  cushion  and  ledge. 
An  aperture,  which  seems  to  have  been  originally  of  a  cir- 
cular form,  and  about  two  and  a  half  feet  in  diameter,  but 
which  some  unlucky  herd-boy,  apparently  in  the  want  of 
better  employment,  has  considerably  mutilated  and  wi- 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

dened,  opens  at  the  inner  excavation  of  the  extremity  to 
the  roof,  as  the  hatch  of  a  vessel  opens  from  the  hold  to  the 
deck ;  for  it  is  by  far  too  wide  in  proportion  to  the  size  of 
the  apartment  to  be  regarded  as  a  chimney.  A  gray, 
rudely-hewn  block  of  sandstone,  which,  though  greatly  too 
ponderous  to  be  moved  by  any  man  of  the  ordinary  strength, 
seems  to  have  served  the  purpose  of  a  door,  lies  prostrate 
beside  the  opening  in  front.  And  such  is  the  famous 
Dwarfie  Stone  of  Hoy,  as  firmly  fixed  in  our  literature  by 
the  genius  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  as  in  this  wild  valley  by  its 
ponderous  weight  and  breadth  of  base,  and  regarding 
which  —  for  it  shares  in  the  general  obscurity  of  the  other 
ancient  remains  of  Orkney  —  the  antiquary  can  do  little 
more  than  repeat,  somewhat  incredulously,  what  tradition 
tells  him,  viz.,  that  it  was  the  work,  many  ages  ago,  of  an 
ugly,  malignant  goblin,  half-earth  half-air, — the  Elfin  Trolld, 
—  a  personage,  it  is  said,  that  even  within  the  last  century, 
used  occasionally  to  be  seen  flitting  about  in  its  neighbor- 
hood. 

I  was  fortunate  in  a  fine  breezy  day,  clear  and  sunshiny, 
save  where  the  shadows  of  a  few  dense  piled-up  clouds  swept 
dark  athwart  the  landscape.  In  the  secluded  recesses  of 
the  valley  all  was  hot,  heavy  and  still ;  though  now  and  then 
a  fitful  snatch  of  a  breeze,  the  mere  fragment  of  some  broken 
gust  that  seemed  to  have  lost  its  way,  tossed  for  a  moment 
the  white  cannach  of  the  bogs,  or  raised  spirally  into  the 
air,  for  a  few  yards,  the  light  beards  of  some  seeding  thistle, 
and  straightway  let  them  down  again.  Suddenly,  however, 
about  noon,  a  shower  broke  thick  and  heavy  against  the 
dark  sides  and  gray  scalp  of  the  Ward  Hill,  and  came 
sweeping  down  the  valley.  I  did  what  Norna  of  the  Fitful 
Head  had,  according  to  the  novelist,  done  before  me  in  simi- 
lar circumstances,  crept  for  shelter  into  the  larger  bed  of 
the  cell,  which,  though  rather  scant,  taken  fairly  length- 

43* 


510  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

wise,  for  a  man  of  five  feet  eleven,  I  found,  by  stretching 
myself  diagonally  from  corner  to  corner,  no  very  uncom- 
fortable lounging-place  in  a  thunder-shower.  Some  provi- 
dent herd-boy  had  spread  it  over,  apparently  months  before, 
with  a  Uttering  of  heath  and  fern,  which  now  formed  a  dry, 
springy  couch ;  and  as  I  lay  wrapped  up  in  my  plaid,  listen- 
ing to  the  rain-drops  as  they  pattered  thick  and  heavy  atop, 
or  slanted  through  the  broken  hatchway  to  the  vacant  bed 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  excavation,  I  called  up  the  wild 
narrative  of  Norna,  and  felt  all  its  poetry.  The  opening 
passage  of  the  story  is,  however,  not  poetry,  but  good  prose, 
in  which  the  curious  visitor  might  give  expression  to  his 
own  conjectures,  if  ingenious  enough  either  to  form  or  to 
express  them  so  well.  "  "With  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  smaller 
bed,"  the  sorceress  is  made  to  say,  "  I  wearied  myself  with 
conjectures  regarding  the  origin  and  purpose  of  my  singular 
place  of  refuge.  Had  it  been  really  the  work  of  that  power- 
ful Trolld  to  whom  the  poetry  of  the  Scalds  referred  it  ?  or 
was  it  the  tomb  of  some  Scandinavian  chief,  interred  Avith 
his  arms  and  his  wealth,  perhaps  also  with  his  immolated 
wife,  that  what  he  loved  best  in  life  might  not  in  death  be 
divided  from  him  ?  or  was  it  the  abode  of  penance  chosen 
by  some  devoted  anchorite  of  later  days?  or  the  idle  work 
of  some  wandering  mechanic,  whom  chance,  and  whim,  and 
leisure,  had  thrust  upon  such  an  undertaking?"  What  fol- 
lows this  sober  passage  is  the  work  of  the  poet.  "  Sleep," 
continues  Norna,  "  had  gradually  crept  upon  me  among  my 
lucubrations,  when  I  was  startled  from  my  slumbers  by  a 
second  clap  of  thunder,  and  when  I  awoke,  I  saw  through 
the  dim  light  which  the  upper  aperture  admitted,  the  un- 
shapely and  indistinct  form  of  Trolld  the  dwarf,  seated 
opposite  to  me  on  the  lesser  couch,  which  his  square  and 
misshapen  bulk  seemed  absolutely  to  fill  up.  I  was  startled, 
but  not  affrighted ;  for  the  blood  of  the  ancient  race  of 


RAMBLES   OP  A   GEOLOGIST.  511 

Lochlin  was  warm  in  ray  veins.  He  spoke,  and  his  words 
were  of  Norse,  —  so  old,  that  few  save  my  father,  or  I  my- 
self could  have  comprehended  their  import,  —  such  language 
as  was  spoken  in  these  islands  ere  Olave  planted  his  cross 
on  the  ruins  of  heathenism.  His  meaning  was  dark  also, 
and  obscure,  like  that  which  the  pagan  priests  were  wont  to 
deliver,  in  the  name  of  their  idols,  to  the  tribes  that  assem- 
bled at  the  Helgafels.  *  *  *  I  answered  him  in  nearly 
the  same  strain,  for  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Scalds  of  our 
race  was  upon  rne ;  and  far  from  fearing  the  phantom  with 
whom  I  sat  cooped  within  so  narrow  a  space,  I  felt  the  im- 
pulse of  that  high  courage  which  thrust  the  ancient  cham- 
pions and  Druidesses  upon  contests  with  the  invisible  world, 
when  they  thought  that  the  earth  no  longer  contained 
enemies  worthy  to  be  subdued  by  them.  *  *  *  The 
Demon  scowled  at  me  as  if  at  once  incensed  and  overawed ; 
and  then,  coiling  himself  up  in  a  thick  and  sulphurous  vapor, 
he  disappeared  from  his  place.  I  did  not  till  that  moment 
feel  the  influence  of  fright,  but  then  it  seized  me.  I  rushed 
into  the  open  air,  where  the  tempest  had  passed  away,  and 
all  was  pure  and  serene."  Shall  I  dare  confess,  that  I  could 
fain  have  passed  some  stormy  night  all  alone  in  this  solitary 
cell,  were  it  but  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  listening,  amid  the 
darkness,  to  the  dashing  rain  and  the  roar  of  the  wind  high 
among  the  clifls,  or  to  detect  the  brushing  sound  of  hasty 
footsteps  in  the  wild  rustle  of  the  heath,  or  the  moan  of  un- 
happy spirits  in  the  low  roar  of  the  distant  sea.  Or,  may- 
hap, —  again  to  borrow  from  the  poet,  —  as  midnight  was 
passing  into  morning, 

"  To  ponder  o'er  some  mystic  lay, 
Till  the  wild  tale  had  all  its  sway  ; 
And  in  the  bittern's  distant  shriek 
I  heard  unearthly  voices  speak, 
Or  thought  the  wizard  priest  was  come 


512  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

To  claim  again  his  ancient  home  ! 
And  bade  my  busy  fancy  range 
To  frame  him  fitting  shape  and  strange  ; 
Till  from  the  dream  my  brow  I  cleared, 
And  smiled  to  think  that  I  had  feared." 

The  Dwarfie  Stone  has  been  a  good  deal  undervalued  by 
some  writers,  such  as  the  historian  of  Orkney,  Mr.  Barry ; 
and,  considered  simply  as  a  work  of  art  or  labor,  it  cer- 
tainly does  not  stand  high.  When  tracing,  as  I  lay  a-bed, 
the  marks  of  the  tool,  which,  in  the  harder  portions  of  the 
stone,  are  still  distinctly  visible,  I  just  thought  how  that, 
armed  with  pick  and  chisel,  and  working  as  I  was  once 
accustomed  to  work,  I  could  complete  such  another  exca- 
vation to  order  in  some  three  weeks  or  a  month.  But  then, 
I  could  not  make  my  excavation  a  thousand  years  old,  nor 
envelop  its  origin  in  the  sun-gilt  vapors  of  a  poetic  ob- 
scurity, nor  connect  it  with  the  supernatural,  through  the 
influences  of  wild  ancient  traditions,  nor  yet  encircle  it  with 
a  classic  halo,  borrowed  from  the  undying  inventions  of 
an  exquisite  literary  genius.  A  half-worn  pewter  spoon, 
stamped  on  the  back  with  the  word  London,  which  was 
found  in  a  miserable  hut  on  the  banks  of  the  Awatska  by 
some  British  sailors,  at  once  excited  in  their  minds  a 
thousand  tender  remembrances  of  their  country.  And  it 
would,  I  suspect,  be  rather  a  poor  criticism,  and  scarcely 
suited  to  grapple  with  the  true  phenomena  of  the  case, 
that,  wholly  overlooking  the  magical  influences  of  the  asso- 
ciative faculty,  would  concentrate  itself  simply  on  either 
the  workmanship  or  the  materials  of  the  spoon.  Xor  is 
the  Dwarfie  Stone  to  be  correctly  estimated,  independently 
of  the  suggestive  principle,  on  the  rules  of  the  mere  quar- 
rier  who  sells  stones  by  the  cubic  foot,  or  of  the  mere  con- 
tractor for  hewn  work  who  dresses  them  by  the  square  one. 

The  pillow  I  found  lettered  over  with  the  names  of  vis- 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  513 

itors ;  but  the  stone,  —  an  exceedingly  compact  red  sand- 
stone,—  had  resisted  the  imperfect  tools  at  the  command 
of  the  traveller,  —  usually  a  nail  or  knife ;  and  so  there  were 
but  two  of  the  names  deciphei-able, —  that  of  an  "  H.  Ross, 
1735,"  and  that  of  a  P.  FOLSTER,  1830."  The  rain  still 
pattered  heavily  overhead ;  and  with  my  geological  chisel 
and  hammer  I  did,  to  beguile  the  time,  what  I  very  rarely 
do,  —  added  my  name  to  the  others,  in  characters  which, 
if  both  they  and  the  Dwarfie  Stone  get  but  fair  play,  will 
be  distinctly  legible  two  centuries  hence.  In  what  state 
will  the  world  then  exist,  or  what  sort  of  ideas  will  fill  the 
head  of  the  man  who,  when  the  rock  has  well-nigh  yielded 
up  its  charge,  will  decipher  the  name  for  the  last  time,  and 
inquire,  mayhap,  regarding  the  individual  whom  it  now 
designates,  as  I  did  this  morning,  when  I  asked,  "Who 
was  this  H.  Ross,  and  who  this  P.  Folster  ?  "  I  remember 
when  it  would  have  saddened  me  to  think  that  there  would 
in  all  probability  be  as  little  response  in  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other ;  but  as  men  rise  in  years  they  become  more 
indifferent  than  in  early  youth  to  "that  life  which  wits 
inherit  after  death,"  and  are  content  to  labor  on  and  be 
obscure.  They  learn,  too,  if  I  may  judge  from  experience, 
to  pursue  science  more  exclusively  for  its  own  sake,  with 
less,  mayhap,  of  enthusiasm  to  carry  them  on,  but  with 
what  is  at  least  as  strong  to  take  its  place  as  a  moving 
force,  that  wind  and  bottom  of  formed  habit  through  which 
what  were  at  first  acts  of  the  will  pass  into  easy  half-instinc- 
tive promptings  of  the  disposition.  In  order  to  acquaint 
myself  with  the  fossiliferous  deposits  of  Scotland,  I  have 
travelled,  hammer  in  hand,  during  the  last  nine  years,  over 
fully  ten  thousand  miles ;  nor  has  the  work  been  in  the  least 
one  of  dry  labor,  —  not  more  so  than  that  of  the  angler,  or 
grouse-shooter,  or  deer-stalker :  it  has  occupied  the  mere 
leisure  interstices  of  a  somewhat  busy  life,  and  has  served 


514  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

to  relieve  its  toils.  I  have  succeeded,  however,  in  accom- 
plishing but  little :  besides,  what  is  discovery  to-day  will 
be  but  rudimentary  fact  to  the  tyro-geologists  of  the  future. 
But  if  much  has  not  been  done,  I  have  at  least  the  conso- 
lation of  George  Buchanan,  when,  according  to  Melvill, 
"fand  sitting  in  his  chair,  teiching  his  young  man  that 
servit  him  in  his  chalmer  to  spell  a,  b,  ab  ;  e,  b,  eb.  '  Bet- 
ter this,'  quoth  he,  '  nor  stelling  sheipe.'  " 

The  sun  broke  out  in  great  beauty  after  the  shower, 
glistening  on  a  thousand  minute  runnels  that  came  stream- 
ing down  the  precipices,  and  revealing,  through  the  thin 
vapory  haze,  the  horizontal  lines  of  strata  that  bar  the  hill- 
sides, like  courses  of  ashlar  in  a  building.  I  failed,  however, 
to  detect,  amid  the  general  many-pointed  glitter  by  which 
the  blue  gauze-like  mist  was  bespangled,  the  light  of  the 
great  carbuncle  for  which  the  Ward  Hill  has  long  been 
famous,  —  that  wondrous  gem,  according  to  Sir  Walter, 
"  that,  though  it  gleams  ruddy  as  a  furnace  to  them  that 
view  it  from  beneath,  ever  becomes  invisible  to  him 
whose  daring  foot  scales  the  precipices  whence  it  darts  its 
splendor."  The  Hill  of  Hoy  is,  however,  not  the  only  one 
in  the  kingdom  that,  according  to  tradition,  bears  a  jewel 
in  its  forehead.  The  "  great  diamond "  of  the  Northern 
Sutor  was  at  one  time  scarce  less  famous  than  the  car- 
buncle of  the  Ward  Hill.  I  have  been  oftener  than  once 
interrogated  on  the  western  coast  of  Scotland  regarding 
the  diamond  rock  of  Cromarty ; "  and  have  been  told  by 
an  old  campaigner  who  fought  under  Abercrombie,  that 
he  has  listened  to  the  familiar  story  of  its  diamond  amid 
the  sand  wastes  of  Egypt.  But  the  diamond  has  long 
since  disappeared ;  and  we  now  see  only  the  rock.  Un- 
like the  carbuncle  of  Hoy,  it  was  never  seen  by  day; 
though  often,  says  the  legend,  the  benighted  boatmen  has 
gazed,  from  amid  the  darkness,  as  he  came  rowing  along 


RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST.  515 

the  shore,  on  its  clear  beacon-like  flame,  which,  streaming 
from  the  precipice,  threw  a  fiery  strip  across  the  water ; 
and  often  have  the  mariners  of  other  countries  inquired 
whether  the  light  which  they  saw  so  high  among  the  cliffs, 
right  over  their  mast,  did  not  proceed  from  the  shrine  of 
some  saint  or  the  cell  of  some  hermit.  At  length  an  inge- 
nious ship-captain  determined  on  marking  its  place,  brought 
with  him  from  England  a  few  balls  of  chalk,  and  took  aim 
at  it  in  the  night-time  with  one  of  his  great  guns.  Ere  he 
had  fired,  however,  it  vanished,  as  if  suddenly  withdrawn 
by  some  guardian  hand ;  and  its  place  in  the  rock  front 
has  ever  since  remained  as  undistinguishable,  whether  by 
night  or  by  day,  as  the  scaurs  and  clefts  around  it.  The 
marvels  of  the  present  time  abide  examination  more  pa- 
tiently. It  seems  difiicult  enough  to  conceive,  for  instance, 
that  the  upper  deposit  of  the  Lower  Old  Red  in  this 
locality,  out  of  which  the  mountains  of  Hoy  have  been 
scooped,  once  overlaid  the  flag  stones  of  all  Orkney,  and 
stretched  on  and  away  to  Dunnet  Head,  Tarbet  Ness,  and 
the  Black  Isle ;  and  yet  such  is  the  story,  variously  authen- 
ticated, to  which  their  nearly  horizontal  strata,  and  their 
abrupt  precipices  lend  their  testimony.  In  no  case  has 
this  superior  deposit  of  the  formation  of  the  Coccosteus 
been  known  to  furnish  a  single  fossil ;  nor  did  it  yield  me 
on  this  occasion,  among  the  Hills  of  Hoy,  what  it  had  de- 
nied me  everywhere  else  on  every  former  one.  My  search, 
however,  wa»  by  no  means  either  very  prolonged  or  very 
careful. 

I  found  I  had  still  several  hours  of  day-light  before 
me ;  and  these  I  spent,  after  my  return  on  a  rough 
tumbling  sea  to  Stromness,  in  a  second  survey  of  the 
coast,  westwards  from  the  granitic  axis  of  the  island,  to 
the  bishop's  palace,  and  the  ichthyolitic  quarry  beyond. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  high  terminal  Hill  of  Hoy, 


516  RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST. 

towards  the  west,  presents  what  is  really  a  striking  profile 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  sculptured  in  the  rock  front  by  the 
storms  of  ages,  on  so  immense  a  scale,  that  the  Colossus 
of  Rhodes,  Pharos  and  all,  would  scarce  have  furnished 
materials  enough  to  supply  it  with  a  nose.  There  are 
such  asperities  in  the  outline  as  one  might  expect  in  that 
of  a  rudely  modelled  bust,  the  work  of  a  master,  from 
which,  in  his  fiery  haste,  he  had  not  detached  the  super- 
fluous clay ;  but  these  interfere  in  no  degree  with  the 
fidelity,  I  had  almost  said  spirit,  of  the  likeness.  It  seems 
well,  as  it  must  have  waited  for  thousands  of  years  ere  it 
became  the  portrait  it  now  is,  that  the  human  profile, 
which  it  preceded  so  long,  and  without  which  it  would 
have  lacked  the  element  of  individual  truth,  should  have 
been  that  of  Sir  "Walter.  Amid  scenes  so  heightened  in 
interest  by  his  genius  as  those  of  Orkney,  he  is  entitled  to 
a  monument.  To  the  critical  student  of  the  philosophy 
and  history  of  poetic  invention  it  is  not  uninstructive  to 
observe  how  completely  the  novelist  has  appropriated  and 
brought  within  the  compass  of  one  fiction,  in  defiance  of 
all  those  lower  probabilities  which  the  lawyer  who  pleaded 
before  a  jury  court  would  be  compelled  to  respect,  almost 
every  interesting  scene  and  object  in  both  the  Shetland 
and  Orkney  islands.  There  was  but  little  intercourse  in 
those  days  between  the  two  northern  archipelagos.  It  is 
not  yet  thirty  years  since  they  communicated  with  each 
other,  chiefly  through  the  port  of  Leith,  where  their  regu- 
lar traders  used  to  meet  monthly ;  but  it  was  necessary, 
for  purposes  of  effect,  that  the  dreary  sublimities  of  Shet- 
land should  be  wrought  up  into  the  same  piece  of  rich 
tissue  with  the  imposing  antiquities  of  Orkney, —  Sum- 
burgh  Head  and  Roost  with  the  ancient  Cathedral  of  St. 
Magnus  and  the  earl's  palace,  and  Fitful  Head  and  the 
Band-enveloped  kirk  of  St.  Ringan  with  the  Standing 


RAMBLES    OP   A   GEOLOGIST.  517 

Stones  of  Stennis  and  the  Dwarfie  Stone  of  Hoy ;  and  so 
the  little  jury-court  probabilities  have  been  sacrificed  with- 
out scruple,  and  that  higher  truth  of  character,  and  that 
exquisite  portraiture  of  external  nature,  which  give  such 
reality  to  fiction,  and  make  it  sink  into  the  mind  more 
deeply  than  historic  fact,  have  been  substituted  instead. 
But  such,  —  considerably  to  the  annoyance  of  the  lesser 
critics,  —  has  been  ever  the  practice  of  the  greater  poets. 
The  lesser  critics  are  all  critics  of  the  jury-court  cast ; 
while  all  the  great  masters  of  fiction,  with  Shakspeare  at 
their  head,  have  been  asserters  of  that  higher  truth  which 
is  not  letter,  but  spirit,  and  contemners  of  the  mere  judicial 
probabilities.  And  so  they  have  been  continually  fretting 
the  little  men  with  their  extravagances,  and  they  ever  will. 
What  were  said  to  be  the  originals  of  two  of  Sir  Walter's 
characters  in  the  "Pirate"  were  living  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Stromness  only  a  few  years  ago.  An  old  woman 
who  resided  immediately  over  the  town,  in  a  little  cottage, 
of  which  there  now  remains  only  the  roofless  walls,  and 
of  whom  the  sailors,  weather-bound  in  the  port,  used  occa- 
sionally to  purchase  a  wind,  furnished  him  with  the  first 
conception  of  his  Norna  of  the  Fitful  Head ;  and  an 
eccentric  shopkeeper  of  the  place,  who  to  his  dying  day 
used  to  designate  the  "  Pirate,"  with  much  bitterness,  as  a 
"  lying  book,"  and  its  author  as  a  "  wicked  lying  man,"  is 
said  to  have  suggested  the  character  of  Bryce  Snailsfoot 
the  peddler.  To  the  sorceress  Sir  Walter  himself  refers 
in  one  of  his  notes.  "  At  the  village  of  Stromness,  on  the 
Orkney  main  island,  called  Pomona,  lived,"  he  says,  "  in 
1814,  an  aged  dame  called  Bessie  Millie,  who  helped  out 
her  subsistence  by  selling  favorable  winds  to  mariners. 
Her  dwelling  and  appearance  were  not  unbecoming  her 
pretensions :  her  house,  which  was  on  the  brow  of  the  steep 
hill  on  which  Stromness  is  founded,  was  only  accessible  by 
44 


518  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

a  series  of  dirty  and  precipitous  lanes,  and,  for  exposure, 
might  have  been  the  abode  of  ^Eolus  himself,  in  whose 
commodities  the  inhabitant  dealt.  She  herself  was,  as  she 
told  us,  nearly  one  hundred  years  old,  withered  and  dried 
up  like  a  mummy.  A  clay-colored  kerchief,  folded  round 
her  head,  corresponded  in  color  to  her  corpse-like  com- 
plexion. Two  light-blue  eyes  that  gleamed  with  a  lustre 
like  that  of  insanity,  an  utterance  of  astonishing  rapidity, 
a  nose  and  chin  that  almost  met  together,  and  a  ghastly 
expression  of  cunning,  gave  her  the  effect  of  Hecate.  She 
remembered  Gow  the  pirate,  who  had  been  a  native  of 
these  islands,  in  which  he  closed  his  career.  Such  was 
Bessie  Millie,  to  whom  the  mariners  paid  a  sort  of  tribute, 
with  a  feeling  betwixt  jest  and  earnest." 

On  the  opposite  side  of  Stromness,  where  the  arm  of  the 
sea,  which  forms  the  harbor,  is  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
in  width,  there  is,  immediately  over  the  shore,  a  small 
square  patch  of  ground,  apparently  a  plant  icruive,  or  gar- 
den, surrounded  by  a  tall  dry-stone  fence.  It  is  all  that 
survives  —  for  the  old  dwelling-house  to  which  it  was 
attached  was  pulled  down  several  years  ago  —  of  the 
patrimony  of  Gow  the  "  Pirate  ;  "  and  is  not  a  little  inter- 
esting, as  having  formed  the  central  nucleus  round  which, 
—  like  those  bits  of  thread  or  wire  on  which  the  richly 
saturated  fluids  of  the  chemist  solidify  and  crystallize, — 
the  entire  fiction  of  the  novelist  aggregated  and  con- 
densed under  the  influence  of  forces  operative  only  in 
minds  of  genius.  A  white,  tall,  old-fashioned  house,  con- 
spicuous on  the  hill-side,  looks  out  across  the  bay  towards 
the  square  inclosure,  which  it  directly  fronts.  And  it  is 
surely  a  curious  coincidence,  that  while  in  one  of  these  two 
erections,  only  a  few  hundred  yards  apart,  one  of  the  heroes 
of  Scott  saw  the  light,  the  other  should  have  proved  the 
scene  of  the  childhood  of  one  of  the  heroes  of  Byron, 


RAMBLES    OF    A    GEOLOGIST.  519 

"  Torquil,  the  nursling  of  the  northern  seas." 

The  reader  will  remember,  that  in  Byron's  poem  of  "  The 
Island,"  one  of  the  younger  leaders  of  the  mutineers  is 
described  as  a  native  of  these  northern  isles.  He  is  drawn 
by  the  poet,  amid  the  wild  luxuriance  of  an  island  of  the 
Pacific,  as 

"  The  blue-eyed  northern  child, 
Of  isles  more  known  to  man,  but  scarce  less  wild,  — 
The  fair-haired  offspring  of  the  Orcades, 
Where  roars  the  Pentland  with  his  whirling  seas,  — 
Rocked  in  his  cradle  by  the  roaring  wind, 
The  tempest-born  in  body  and  in  mind,  — 
His  young  eyes,  opening  on  the  ocean  foam, — 
Had  from  that  moment  deemed  the  deep  his  home." 

Judging  from  what  I  learned  of  his  real  history,  which  is 
well  known  in  Stromness,  I  found  reason  to  conclude  that 
he  had  been  a  hapless  yoiing  man,  of  a  kindly,  genial 
nature ;  and  greatly  "  more  sinned  against  than  sinning," 
in  the  unfortunate  affair  of  the  mutiny  with  which  his 
name  is  now  associated,  and  for  his  presumed  share  in 
which,  untried  and  unconvicted,  he  was  cruelly  left  to 
perish  in  chains  amid  the  horrors  of  a  shipwreck.  I  had 
the  honor  of  being  introduced  on  the  following  day  to  his 
sister,  a  lady  for  advanced  in  life,  but  over  whose  erect 
form  and  handsome  features  the  years  seemed  to  have 
passed  lightly,  and  whom  I  met  at  the  Free  Church  of 
Stromness,  to  which,  at  the  Disruption,  she  had  followed 
her  respected  minister.  It  seemed  a  fact  as  curiously  com- 
pounded as  some  of  those  pictures  of  the  last  age  in  which 
the  thin  unsubstantialities  of  allegory  mingled  with  the 
tangibilities  of  the  real  and  the  material,  that  the  sister  of 
one  of  Byron's  heroes  should  be  an  attached  member  of 
the  Free  Church. 


520  RAMBLES    OF   A    GEOLOGIST. 

On  my  return  to  the  inn,  I  found  in  the  public  room  a 
young  German  of  some  one  or  two  and  twenty,  who,  in 
making  the  tour  of  Scotland,  had  extended  his  journey 
into  Orkney.  My  specimens,  which  had  begun  to  accu- 
mulate in  the  room,  on  chimney-piece  and  window-sill,  had 
attracted  his  notice,  and  led  us  into  conversation.  He 
spoke  English  well,  but  not  fluently,  —  in  the  style  of  one 
who  had  been  more  accustomed  to  read  than  to  converse 
in  it ;  and  he  seemed  at  least  as  familiar  with  two  of  our 
great  British  authors,  —  Shakspeare  and  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
—  as  most  of  the  better-informed  British  themselves.  It 
was  chiefly  the  descriptions  of  Sir  Walter  in  the  "Pirate" 
that  had  led  him  into  Orkney.  He  had  already  visited 
the  Cathedral  of  St.  Magnus  and  the  Stones  of  Stennis ; 
and  on  the  morrow  he  intended  visiting  the  Dwarfie 
Stone;  though  I  ventured  to  suggest  that,  as  a  broad 
sound  lay  between  Stromness  and  Hoy,  and  as  the  mor- 
row was  the  Sabbath,  he  might  find  some  difficulty  in 
doing  that.  His  circle  of  acquirement  was,  I  found,  rather 
literary  than  scientific.  It  seemed,  however,  to  be  that  of 
a  really  accomplished  young  man,  greatly  better  founded 
in  his  scholarship  than  most  of  our  young  Scotchmen  on 
quitting  the  national  universities ;  and  I  felt,  as  we  con- 
versed together,  chiefly  on  English  literature  and  general 
politics,  how  much  poorer  a  figure  I  would  have  cut  in  his 
country  than  he  cut  in  mine.  I  found,  on  coming  down 
from  my  room  next  morning  to  a  rather  late  breakfast, 
that  he  had  been  out  among  the  Stromness  fishermen,  and 
had  returned  somewhat  chafed.  Not  a  single  boatman 
could  he  find  in  a  populous  seaport  town  that  would 
undertake  to  carry  him  to  the  Dwarfie  Stone  on  the  Sab- 
bath,—  a  fact,  to  their  credit,  which  it  is  but  simple  justice 
to  state.  I  saw  him  afterwards  in  the  Free  Church,  listen- 
ing attentively  to  a  thoroughly  earnest  and  excellent  dis- 


RAMBLES   OF   A    GEOLOGIST.  521 

course,  by  the  Disruption  minister  of  the  parish,  Mr.  Lear- 
month  ;  and  in  the  course  of  the  evening  he  dropped  in 
for  a  short  time  to  the  Free  Church  Sabbath-school,  where 
he  took  his  seat  beside  one  of  the  teachers,  as  if  curious  to 
ascertain  more  in  detail  the  character  of  the  instruction 
which  had  operated  so  influentially  on  the  boatmen,  and 
which  he  had  seen  telling  from  the  pulpit  with  such  evi- 
dent effect.  What  would  not  his  country  now  give, — 
note,  while  drifting  loose  from  all  its  old  moorings,  full  on 
the  perils  of  a  lee  shore,  —  for  the  anchor  of  a  faith  equally 
steadfast !  He  was  a  Lutheran,  he  told  me ;  but,  as  is  too 
common  in  Germany,  his  actual  beliefs  appeared  to  be 
very  considerably  at  variance  with  his  hereditary  creed. 
The  creed  was  a  tolerably  sound  one,  but  the  living  belief 
regarding  it  seemed  to  do  little  more  than  take  cognizance 
of  what  he  deemed  the  fact  of  its  death. 

I  had  carried  with  me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Watt,  to  whom  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  refer  as 
an  intelligent  geologist ;  but  the  letter  I  had  no  opportunity 
of  delivering.  Mr.  Watt  had  learned,  however,  of  my  being 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  kindly  walked  into  Stromness, 
some  six  or  eight  miles,  on  the  morning  of  Monday,  to  meet 
with  me,  bringing  me  a  few  of  his  rarer  specimens.  One  of 
the  number,  —  a  minute  ichthyolite,  about  three  inches  in 
length,  —  I  was  at  first  disposed  to  set  down  as  new,  but  I 
have  since  come  to  regard  it  as  simply  an  imperfectly- 
preserved  specimen  of  a  Cromarty  and  Morayshire  species, 
—  the  Glyptolepis  microlepidotus ;  though  its  state  of 
keeping  is  such  as  to  render  either  conclusion  an  uncer- 
tainty. Another  of  the  specimens  was  that  of  a  fish,  still 
comparatively  rare,  first  figured  in  the  first  edition  of  my 
little  volume  on  the  "  Old  Red  Sandstone,"  from  the  earliest 
found  specimen,  at  a  time  while  it  was  yet  unfurnished  with 
a  name,  but  which  has  since  had  a  place  assigned  to  it  in  the 
44* 


522  RAMBLES    OP   A    GEOLOGIST. 

genus  Diplacanthus,  as  the  species  longispinus.  The  scales, 
when  examined  by  the  glass,  remind  one,  from  their  pecti- 
nated character,  of  shells  covering  the  walls  of  a  grotto,  — 
a  peculiarity  to  which,  when  showing  my  specimen  to  Agas- 
siz,  while  it  had  yet  no  duplicate,  I  directed  his  attention, 
and  which  led  him  to  extemporize  for  it,  on  the  spot,  the 
generic  name  Ostralepis,  or  shell-scale.  On  studying  it 
more  leisurely,  however,  in  the  process  of  assigning  to  it  a 
place  in  his  great  work,  where  the  reader  may  now  find  it 
figured  (Table  XIV.,  fig.  8),  the  naturalist  found  reason  to 
rank  it  among  the  Diplacanthi.  Mr.  Watt's  specimen  ex- 
hibited the  outline  of  the  head  more  completely  than  mine ; 
but  the  Orkney  ichthyolites  rarely  present  the  microscopic 
minutiae ;  and  the  shell-like  aspect  of  the  scales  was  shown 
in  but  one  little  patch,  where  they  had  left  their  impressions 
on  the  stone.  His  other  specimens  consisted  of  single  plates 
of  a  variety  of  Coccosteus,  undistinguishable  in  their  form 
and  proportions  from  those  of  the  Coccosteus  decipiens, 
but  which  exceeded  by  about  one-third  the  average  size  of 
the  corresponding  parts  in  that  species ;  and  of  a  rib-like 
bone,  that  belonged  apparently  to  what  few  of  the  ichthyo- 
lites of  the  Lower  Old  Red  seem  to  have  possessed,  —  an 
osseous  internal  skeleton.  This  last  organism  was  the  only 
one  I  saw  in  Orkney  with  which  I  had  not  been  previously 
acquainted,  or  which  I  could  regard  as  new,  though  possi- 
bly enough  it  may  have  formed  part,  not  of  an  undiscovered 
genus,  but  of  the  known  genus  Asterolepis,  of  whose  inner 
frame-work,  judging  from  the  Russian  specimens  at  least, 
portions  must  have  been  bony.  After  parting  from  Mr. 
Watt,  I  travelled  on  to  Kirkwall,  which,  after  a  leisurely 
journey,  I  reached  late  in  the  evening,  and  on  the  following 
morning  took  the  steamer  for  Wick.  I  brought  away  with 
me,  if  not  many  rare  specimens  or  many  new  geological 
facts,  at  least  a  few  pleasing  recollections  of  an  interesting 


RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST.  523 

country  and  a  hospitable  people.  In  the  previous  chapter 
I  indulged  in  a  brief  quotation  from  Mr.  David  Vedder,  the 
sailor-poet  of  Orkney,  and  I  shall  make  no  apology  for 
availing  myself  in  the  present,  of  the  vigorous,  well-turned 
stanzas  in  which  he  portrays  some  of  those  peculiar  features 
by  which  the  land  of  his  nativity  may  be  best  recognized 
and  most  characteristically  remembered. 

TO   ORKNEY. 

Land  of  the  whirpool,  —  torrent,  —  foam, 

Where  oceans  meet  in  madd'ning  shock; 
The  beetling  cliff,  —  the  shelving  holm,  — 

The  dark  insidious  rock. 
Land  of  the  bleak,  the  treeless  moor,  — 

The  sterile  mountain,  sered  and  riven,  — 
The  shapeless  cairn,  the  ruined  tower, 

Scathed  by  the  bolts  of  heaven,  — 
The  yawning  gulf,  —  the  treacherous  sand, — 
I  love  thce  still,  MY  NATIVE  LAND. 

Land  of  the  dark,  the  Runic  rhyme,  — 

The  mystic  ring,  —  the  cavern  hoar, — 
The  Scandinavian  seer,  sublime 

In  legendary  lore.    ' 
Land  of  a  thousand  sea-kings'  graves,  — 

Those  tameless  spirits  of  the  past, 
Fierce  as  their  subject  arctic  wavesK 

Or  hyperborean  blast,  — 
Though  polar  billows  round  thee  foam, 
I  love  thcc  !  —  thon  wert  once  my  home. 

With  glowing  heart  and  island  lyre, 

Ah !  would  some  native  bard  arise 
To  sing,  with  all  a  poet's  fire, 

Thy  stern  sublimities,  — 
The  roaring  flood, —  the  rushing  stream, — 

The  promontory  wild  and  bare,  — 
The  pyramid,  where  sea-birds  scream, 

Aloft  in  middle  air,  — 
The  Druid  temple  on  the  heath, 
Old  even  beyond  tradition's  birth. 


524  RAMBLES   OF   A   GEOLOGIST. 

Though  I  have  roamed  through  verdant  glades, 

In  cloudless  climes,  'neath  azure  skies, 
Or  plucked  from  beauteous  orient  meads, 

Flowers  of  celestial  dies,  — 
Though  I  have  laved  in  limpid  streams, 

That  murmur  over  golden  sands, 
Or  basked  amid  the  fulgid  beams 

That  flame  o'er  fairer  lands, 
Or  stretched  me  in  the  sparry  grot, — 
My  country!  THOU  Avert  ne'er  forgot. 


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and  a  HISTORY  OP  THE  COLONY,  1624 — 1628,  Roger  Conant,  Governor.  By  J.  WIN- 
GATE  THORJJTOS.  8vo,  cloth,  $1.50. 

US-  "  A  rare  contribution  to  the  early  history  of  New  England.™  —  Mercantile  Journal. 

LAKE  SUPERIOR  ;  Its  Physical  Character,  Vegetation,  and  Animals.  By  L. 
AGASSIZ  and  others.  One  volume  octavo,  elegantly  Illustrated,  cloth,  $3.50. 

THE  TTATiLIG ;  OB,  THE  SHEEPFOLD  IN  THE  WATERS.  A  Tale  of  Humble  Life  on 
the  Coast  of  Schleswig.  Translated  from  the  German  of  BIERNATSKI,  by  Mrs.  GEORGB  P. 
MARSH.  With  a  Biographical  Sketch  of  the  Author.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

As  a  revelation  of  an  entire  new.  phase  in  human  society,  this  work  strongly  reminds  the  reader 
of  Miss  Bremer's  tales.  In  originality  and  brilliancy  of  imagination,  it  is  not  inferior  to  those  ;  — 
its  aim  is  far  higher. 

THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  NORTH  STAR;  A  Narrative  of  the  Excursion 
made  by  Mr.  Vanderbilt's  Party  in  the  Steam  Yacht,  in  her  Voyage  to  England,  Russia, 
Denmark,  France,  Spain,  Italy,  Malta,  Turkey,  Madeira,  &c.  By  Rev.  JOHN  OVERTOX 
CHOULES,  D.  D.  With  elegant  Illustrations,  &c.  12mo,  cloth,  gilt  backs  and  sides,  $1.50  ; 
cloth,  gilt,  $2.00  ;  Turkey,  gilt,  $3.00. 

PILGRIMAGE  TO  EGYPT;  embracing  a  Diary  of  Explorations  on  the  Nile, 
with  Observations  Illustrative  of  the  Manners,  Customs,  and  Institutions  of  the  People, 
and  of  the  present  condition  of  the  Antiquities  and  Ruins.  By  Hon.  J.  V.  C.  SMITH,  late 
Mayor  of  the  City  of  Boston.  With  numerous  elegant  Engravings.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.25. 

IPOETI  a-A-L  -WORKS. 

COMPLETE    POETICAL   "WORKS    OF    "WILLIAM   COWPER; 

with  a  Life  and  Critical  Notices  of  his  Writings.  Elegant  Illustrations.  16mo,  cloth, 
$1.00. 

POETICAL  "WORKS  OF  SIR  "WALTER  SCOTT.  Life  and  Dlustra- 
tions.  16mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

MILTON'S  POETICAL  WORKS.  With  a  Life  and  elegant  Elustrations. 
16mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

OS-  The  above  Poetical  Works,  by  standard  authors,  are  all  of  uniform  size  and  style,  printed 
on  fine  paper  from  clear,  distinct  type,  with  new  and  elegant  illustrations,  richly  bound  in  full  gilt, 
«nd  plain.  (27) 


WORKS  OF  HUGH  MILLER. 

THE  OLD  RED  SANDSTONE  ;  or,  New  Walks  in  an  Old  Field.  Illustrated 
with  Plates  and  Geological  Sections.  NEW  EDITION,  REVISED  AND  MUCH  ENLARGED, 
by  the  addition  of  new  matter  and  new  Illustrations,  etc.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.25. 

This  edition  contains  over  one  hundred  pages  of  entirely  new  matter,  from  the  pen  of  Hugh 
Miller.  It  contains,  also,  several  additional  new  plates  and  cuts,  the  old  plates  re-engraved  and 
improved,  and  an  Appendix  of  new  Notes. 

"  It  is  withal  one  of  the  most  beautiful  specimens  of  English  composition  to  be  found,  convey- 
ing  information  on  a  most  difficult  and  profound  science,  in  a  style  at  once  novel,  pleasing,  and 
elegant."  —  DR.  S  PR  AGUE  —  Albany  Spectator. 

THE  FOOT-PKINTS  OF  THE  CREATOR;  or,  the  Asterolepis  of  Strom- 
ness,  with  numerous  Illustrations.  With  a  Memoir  of  the  Author,  by  Louis  AGASSIZ. 
12mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 

DR.  BUCKLAXD  said  he  would  give  his  left  hand  to  possess  suchpower  of  description  of  this  man. 

TESTIMONY  OF  THE  ROCKS  ;  or,  Geology  in  its  Bearings  on  the  two 
Theologies,  Natural  and  Revealed.  "  Thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the  stones  of  the 
field."  —  Job.  With  numerous  elegant  Illustrations.  One  volume,  royal  12mo,  cloth, 
$1.25. 

This  is  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  Geological  Work  that  the  distinguished  author  haa 
yet  published.  It  exhibits  the  profound  learning,  the  felicitous  style,  and  the  scientific  perception, 
Which  characterize  his  former  works,  while  it  embraces  the  latest  results  of  geological  discovery. 
But  the  great  charm  of  the  book  lies  in  those  passages  of  glowing  eloquence,  in  which,  having 
spread  out  his  facts,  the  author  proceeds  to  make  deductions  from  them  of  the  most  striking  and 
exciting  character.  The  work  is  profusely  illustrated  by  engravings  executed  at  Paris,  in  the  highest 
style  of  French  art. 

THE  CRUISE  OF  THE  BETSEY;  or,  a  Summer  Ramble  among  the  Fossil- 
iferous  Deposits  of  the  Hebrides.  With  Rambles  of  a  Geologist  ;  or,  Ten  Thousand 
Miles  over  the  Fossiliferous  Deposits  of  Scotland.  12mo,  cloth,  $1.25. 

Nothing  need  be  said  of  it  save  that  it  possesses  the  same  fascination  for  the  reader  that  charac- 
terizes the  author's  other  works. 

MY  SCHOOLS  AND  SCHOOLMASTERS;  or,  the  Story  of  my  Educa. 
tion.  As  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  With  a  full-length  Portrait  of  the  Author.  12mo,  cloth, 
$1.25. 

This  is  a  personal  narrative,  of  a  deeply  interesting  and  instructive  character,  concerning  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  age. 

MY  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ENGLAND  AND  ITS  PEOPLE. 

With  a  flue  Engraving  of  the  author.    12mo,  cloth,  $1.00. 


very  instructive  book  of  travels,  presenting  the  most  perfectly  life-like  views  of  England 
and  its  people  to  be  found  in  any  language. 

B3~  The  above  six  volumes  are  furnished  in  sets,  printed  and  bound  in  vmform  style  :  yiz., 

HUGH  MILLER'S  "WORKS,  Six  VOLUMES.    Elegant  embossed  cloth,  $7.00; 
library  sheep,  $8.00  ;  half  calf,  $12.00  ;  antique,  $12.00. 

MACAULAY   ON    SCOTLAND.     A  Critique,  from  the  "Witness."  16mo, 
flexible  cloth,  25  cts.  (28) 


GOULD   AND  LINCOLN, 

59  WASHINGTON  STREET,  BOSTON, 

Would  call  particular  attention  to  the  following  valuable  wonts  described 
in  their  Catalogue  of  Publications,  viz. : 

Hugh.   Miller's    Works. 

Bayne'S  Works.       Walker's  Works.       Miall's  Works.       Bungener's   Work. 
Animal  of  Scientific  Discovery.      Knight's  Knowledge  is  Power. 

Krummaeher's  Suffering  Saviour, 

Banvard's  American  Histories.     The  Aimwell  Stories. 
VewcOmb's  Works.     Tweedie's  Works.     Chambers's  Works.     Harris' Works. 

Kitto's  Cyclopaedia  of  Biblical   Literature. 

f  r».  Knignt's  Life  of  Montgomery.        Kitto's  History  of  Palestin 
Wh.eewell'8  Work.     Wayland's  Works.     Agassiz'g  Works. 


William's  Works.     Guyot's  Works. 
Cbompson's  Better  Land.     Kimball's  Heaven.    Valuable  Works  on  Missions. 

Haven's  Mental  Philosophy.     Buchanan's  Modern  Atheism. 
Cruden's  Condensed  Concordance.     Eadie's  Analytical  Concordance. 

Th3  Psalmist :  a  Collection    of  Hymns. 
Valuable  School  Books.     Works  for  Sabbath  Schools. 

Memoir  of  Amos  Lawrence. 
Poetical  Works  of  Milton,  Cowper,  Scott.       Elegant  Miniature  Volmr»P. 

Arvine's  Cyclopaedia  of  Anecdotes. 

Kipley's  Notes   on  Gospels,  Acts,   and  Romans. 

Sprague'a  European  Celebrities.     Marsh's  Camel  and  the  HaKig. 

Hogefs  Thesaurus  of  English  Words. 

Hackett's  Notes  on  Acts.     M"Whorter's  Yahveh  Christ. 

a>ebold  and  Stannius'a  Comparative  Anatomy.    Marco's  Geological  Map,  V.  8. 

Religious  and  Miscellaneous  Works. 
Works  ia  the  various  Department*  "f  Literature,  Science  and  Art. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 


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